Moorhead Starbucks Workers Join The Nationwide Strike

MOORHEAD, Minn. (KVRR) — In April of 2023, the Starbucks in Moorhead received permission for workers to organize a union at the location. Early Tuesday morning, the Service Employees International Union and Starbucks Workers United, began their strike.

“The company agreed to bargain in good faith with us for a contract. And last month they are refusing to give us any economic proposals so things like wage, benefits. And so right now we’re here to protest their them going back on their promise and bargaining in good faith,” said Leo Rand, Shift Supervisor at Starbucks.

Rand has been working for a year and a half, and along with Starbucks employees across the nation, they are striking due to alleged unfair labor practices.

“We were all kind of getting fed up with things that were being told to us and then taken away from us. Things that weren’t adding up just a bunch of unfair labor practices,” said Cayley Borrud, Supervisor at Starbucks.

“We get things scrapped without us even knowing it. And we don’t have any say on whether it’s scrapped. Same thing with our pay, our pay can get changed, lowered, and everything without us having any say,” said Tiana Taylor, Barista at Starbucks.

One of the employee benefits, added in 2013, covers gender reassignment surgery. The workers in Moorhead received late notice that this will no longer be a coverage.

“I’m non-binary and I was planning on getting top surgery which is the reason I started working here at Starbucks. And it was unknown to me while I was working here that we had lost gender-affirming care and I probably found out about two months after we had already lost it. So that’s a huge one and a huge one for many of the partners that work here at Starbucks,” said Taylor.

While the Starbucks website has not shown a change in this benefit, workers have stated otherwise. Prior to the strike on Monday, employees received a memo from Sara Kelly, the Executive Vice President for Starbucks stating they are thankful for the over 200,000 workers and that “The union chose to walk away from bargaining last week. We are ready to continue negotiations when the union comes back to the bargaining table.”

While the strike was planned just for today they hope that their message gets across to the company.