The red cup rebellion began on Thursday Nov. 13. This included stores in Ypsilanti: Glencoe Crossing and Carpenter Road locations. Starbucks employees are outraged with the management of their stores and how they are being treated. The Starbucks workers are striking in hopes to finalize a fair contract with all employees and address their ongoing ULP’S (unfair labor practices). A ULP is an unfair labor practice.

Two stores in Ypsilanti are still closed as of Dec. 17 due to the picket line. Elizabeth Huls-Weborg is part of the Starbucks union members and a strike captain.

“The company has been refusing to give us fair wages and fair hours,” Huls-Weborg said. “They’ve been refusing to come to the bargaining table after many, many requests of us trying to get them to bargain and sit down with us, but they’ve been refusing since, I think May at this point, recently, the union and a lot of stores have voted to go on strike against the company until they give us a fair labor contract. This strike will not end until they sit down with us.” 

According to https://sbworkersunited.org/our-strike/, Starbucks leadership said they will return “to talk” to the bargaining team. According to Huls-Weborg, the CEO of Starbucks made $96 million in four months. This means he makes around, 6666 times the amount of the average Starbucks employee.

• National framework bargaining began in April 2024. Over the subsequent nine months, baristas and Starbucks executives met for hundreds of hours and notched 33 tentative agreements that will tangibly improve the workplace. 

• In September 2024, union baristas first presented a set of economic proposals for negotiation to increase wages and benefits. 
• In December 2024, Starbucks said “no” to all of the baristas’ proposals and, in exchange, put forth an unserious economic package that did not raise wages in the first year of the contract, nor did it address the core issues of hours and staffing. Talks broke down. 
• Starbucks backtracked on the previously agreed-upon path forward. This prompted Workers United to file a national unfair labor (ULP) practice charge in December 2024 alleging Starbucks’ had failed to bargain in good faith and was undermining the representative status of the union.  This ULP was amended and expanded in April 2025.
• In 2025, the company unlawfully implemented new policies without bargaining with the Union, such as components of “Back to Starbucks” and the restrictive new dress code, leading to more ULP charges.
• Workers United has filed over 100 new ULPs over the last year.

Information from: https://sbworkersunited.org/our-strike/

“And right now, we are chronically understaffed,” Huls-Weborg said. “There’s high turnover, so there’s illegal union busting. Our store is not up to standard to serve people. They have been ignoring massive problems for a while.” 

Joining at the picket line was barista Angie Willenburg. She is a full time student while also working for Starbucks full time.

“I don’t really have much time for anything else in life, and my job has consistently tried to schedule me outside of hours,” Willenburg said. “So they’re like, ‘Hey, you have to choose between having your job or going to school,’ and I have had to make that choice a few times, or I’ve had to miss classes, and I fall behind in order to keep my job.”

The three main demands that the employees have are: 1. Better hours to improve staffing in stores. 2. Higher take-home pay, so they can pay their bills, 3. Resolution of hundreds of unfair  labor practice charges for union busting

 “A lot of Starbucks stores are not up to standards to serve people, but they still proceed to ignore that fact and ignore their employees,” Willenburg  said. “They’re ignoring the fact that Starbuck’s stores are unionized.”

A union is an organized group of workers who join together to raise their voices in making their workplaces and industries better for all. Health care is another part of what unions can bargain for.

“There are a variety of health care plans ranging from a very low end to a very high end that there’s a range of plans that we can choose from,” Huls-Weborg said. “But the problem is they are still not affordable. There are a few of them that are recommended that a lot of people choose, because those are the only ones that actually cover things. But I have one of those plants that actually chooses to cover things. I just got married in October, so my wife is going to bring my paycheck, like, pay for my health care from $50 a paycheck to $200 a paycheck.”

To learn more about the strike go to this website: https://sbworkersunited.org/our-strike/