By DEE-ANN DURBIN

Greater than 1,000 Starbucks baristas at 75 U.S. shops have gone on strike since Sunday to protest a brand new firm gown code, a union representing the espresso big’s employees mentioned Wednesday.

Starbucks put new limits beginning Monday on what its baristas can put on beneath their inexperienced aprons. The gown code requires staff at company-operated and licensed shops within the U.S. and Canada to put on a strong black shirt and khaki, black or blue denim bottoms.

Beneath the earlier gown code, baristas may put on a broader vary of darkish colours and patterned shirts. Starbucks mentioned the brand new guidelines would make its inexperienced aprons stand out and create a way of familiarity for patrons because it tries to determine a hotter, extra welcoming feeling in its shops.

However Starbucks Employees United, the union that represents employees at 570 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-owned U.S. shops, mentioned the gown code must be topic to collective bargaining.

“Starbucks 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,” mentioned Paige Summers, a Starbucks shift supervisor from Hanover, Maryland. “Customers don’t care what color our clothes are when they’re waiting 30 minutes for a latte.”

Summers and others additionally criticized the corporate for promoting kinds of Starbucks-branded clothes that staff not are allowed to put on to work on an inner web site. Starbucks mentioned it might give two free black T-shirts to every worker when it introduced the brand new gown code.

Starbucks mentioned Wednesday that the strike was having a restricted affect on its 10,000 company-operated U.S. shops.

“Thousands of Starbucks partners came to work this week ready to serve their customers and communities,” the corporate mentioned in an announcement. “It would be more productive if the union would put the same effort into coming back to the table to finalize a reasonable contract.”

Starbucks Employees United has been unionizing U.S. shops since 2021. Starbucks and the union have but to succeed in a contract settlement, regardless of agreeing to return to the bargaining desk in February 2024.

The union mentioned this week that it filed a grievance with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board alleging Starbucks’ failure to cut price over the brand new gown code.

Initially Printed: Might 14, 2025 at 2:40 PM EDT