More than 1,000 Starbucks baristas go on strike to protest new dress code
May 14, 2025, 11:22 AM | Updated: 12:42 pm
Starbucks baristas stand on stage, March 20, 2019, during an annual shareholders meeting in Seattle. (File photo: Ted S. Warren, AP)
(File photo: Ted S. Warren, AP)
More than 1,000 Starbucks baristas at 75 U.S. stores have gone on strike since Sunday to protest a聽, a union representing the coffee giant’s workers said Wednesday.
聽put new limits starting Monday on what its baristas can wear under their green aprons. The dress code requires employees at company-operated and licensed stores in the U.S. and Canada to wear a solid black shirt and khaki, black or blue denim bottoms.
Under the previous dress code, baristas could wear a broader range of dark colors and patterned shirts. Starbucks said the new rules would make its green aprons stand out and create a sense of familiarity聽聽as it tries to establish a聽聽in its stores.
叠耻迟听, the union that represents workers at 570 of Starbucks鈥� 10,000 company-owned U.S. stores, said the dress code should be subject to collective bargaining.
鈥淪tarbucks has lost its way. Instead of listening to baristas who make the Starbucks experience what it is, they are focused on all the wrong things, like implementing a restrictive new dress code,鈥� said Paige Summers, a Starbucks shift supervisor from Hanover, Maryland. 鈥淐ustomers don鈥檛 care what color our clothes are when they鈥檙e waiting 30 minutes for a latte.鈥�
Summers and others also criticized the company for selling styles of Starbucks-branded clothing that employees no longer are allowed to wear to work on an internal website. Starbucks said it would give two free black T-shirts to each employee when it announced the new dress code.
Starbucks said Wednesday that the strike was having a limited impact on its 10,000 company-operated聽.
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鈥淭housands of Starbucks partners came to work this week ready to serve their customers and communities,鈥� the company said in a statement. 鈥淚t would be more productive if the union would put the same effort into coming back to the table to finalize a reasonable contract.鈥�
Starbucks Workers United has been unionizing U.S. stores since 2021. Starbucks and the union have yet to reach a contract agreement, despite agreeing to return to the bargaining table in February 2024.
The union said this week that it filed a complaint with the聽 alleging Starbucks’ failure to bargain over the new dress code
