Thousands of Starbucks workers across the U.S., including baristas in Central Florida, are calling for customers to boycott the multibillion-dollar coffee chain over its failure to meet baristas’ demands for a first union contract.
The workers, represented by the union Starbucks Workers United, are asking Starbucks for a $17 minimum wage, better hours, just-cause protections — so they can’t get fired for no reason — an end to understaffing, a stronger non-discrimination policy, and the broader opportunity to have a real voice on the job.
“We are taking a stand with the people around us, looking at each other and saying, ‘This is wrong.’ We can’t survive off of $15 an hour in this day and age, we can’t survive off of the prices of groceries, off of the price of gas right now, and if it continues to get worse, we don’t know where we’ll end up,” said Niko OrGolan, a barista at a unionized Starbucks location in Oviedo. “So we’re stopping it right now.”
Starbucks Workers United, a union representing more than 11,000 baristas, first released its call for an official, open-ended boycott in late August. The union had previously asked the public to delete the Starbucks app from their phones and to refuse to cross the picket line during temporary strikes and walkouts.
The union represents baristas across more than 700 U.S. locations, including two locations in the Orlando metro. The first corporate-owned Starbucks unionized in Buffalo, New York, in 2021 in an upset victory for the upstart union.
Since 2021, however, Starbucks has been accused of violating federal labor law in hundreds of complaints filed with the National Labor Relations Board by the union, alleging unlawful retaliation against pro-union workers, the unlawful withholding of raises and benefits from unionized baristas, and a failure of Starbucks to bargain a union contract with unionized stores in good faith.
“I personally joined [the union] because I want to give power to myself, to my fellow baristas, have a say in our workplace — just to be able to feel like when we’re coming in, we’re not under constant attack, to feel like … our voices are heard in our own workplace,” said Avery Giunta, a former Starbucks barista who told the Weekly she was fired from her job after supporting an effort to unionize her nonunion Starbucks in east Orlando.
Giunta, still actively supportive of the union, sees their fight for a union contract as a broader picture of what organized labor across industries can accomplish. Other organizing campaigns of workers employed by Trader Joe’s, Chipotle, Amazon and other major corporations have named Starbucks Workers United as an inspiration to their own efforts.
“This won’t be just a victory for Starbucks,” said Giunta. “This will be a victory for everybody because if we can do it, then … Realistically, there’s nothing stopping anybody else from organizing and getting better benefits for their job as well.”
A Starbucks spokesperson told Orlando Weekly in a statement that the company already offers competitive pay and “industry-leading benefits.”
“As we have always been, we’re committed to engaging in productive bargaining,” the spokesperson added, without commenting specifically on the union’s demands or clarifying the company’s counter-offers.
Although union density in the U.S. is about one-third of what it used to be from its peak in the mid-20th century — and even lower in Florida, compared to the national average — public support for unions is at a near-record high.
According to new Gallup polling released last week, 71 percent of Americans approve of labor unions, up from 68 percent in 2025. Unions are especially popular among younger people and Democrats, with 77 percent of respondents aged 18 to 34 touting support for them.
“These companies are never, ever going to concede,” said OrGolan, who — like Giunta — has never been a union member before, but found inspiration in the Starbucks organizing movement. “They’re never going to give us the means to survive,” he said of companies like Starbucks. “We have to do something about it ourselves. And I think this is where the fight to unionize these stores comes in.”
Starbucks, a mass coffee chain headquartered in Seattle, has reportedly spent millions of dollars on its own anti-union campaign, including an expensive cadre of “union avoidance” lawyers. The coffee giant has also found the means to pay its CEO, Brian Niccol — the former CEO of Chipotle — $31 million in compensation in 2025, down from $95.8 million in 2024.
Niccol has faced flak from workers over his use of a private jet, paid for on Starbucks’ dime, for his expensive commute from California to Seattle and for personal travel. “It’s well within the company’s boundaries to be able to give us these things, right?” said OrGolan.
“If you as a customer don’t want to go to Starbucks anymore because you support the union, that’s just going to show the companies that’s not just a barista thing — it’s a community thing,” said Giunta.
Other coffee options around town, of course, include (but are not limited to) Lineage, Foxtail, Haan, Lucky Goat, Lobos, Drunken Monkey, Framework, Qreate, Bynx, Ligature, Prairie House, The Burrow, Deeply and Stardust, among others.
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