A union representing more than 10,000 baristas at the Starbucks coffeehouse chain has announced that its members will strike at stores in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle for five days starting on Dec. 20.
Starbucks Workers United, which represents employees across 525 stores in the United States, said on Dec. 19 that the walkouts would escalate daily and could affect “hundreds of stores” nationwide by Christmas Eve.
Starbucks said that it is ready to continue negotiations, claiming that union delegates prematurely ended the final bargaining session of the year on Dec. 17.
In a Dec. 20 statement posted to Facebook, the union said that Starbucks has “yet to present workers with a serious economic proposal.”…