GILBERT – Today, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) joined Starbucks union baristas and community allies on the picket line in Gilbert, AZ in solidarity with their ongoing, open-ended unfair labor practice strike protesting Starbucks’ historic union busting and failure to finalize a fair union contract. The Red Cup Rebellion, launched on November 13, has now grown to 3,800 baristas in 180+ stores across 130+ cities—the longest nationwide ULP strike in Starbucks history.
Read what Senator Gallego shared with striking workers at the picket line below:
“Think about how ridiculous this is. They shut down a Starbucks because they’re afraid of working class people getting a decent wage and having some power. A corporation that has some of the highest separation between the worker and the CEO is afraid of people having a little more power, a little more say in their lives every day. Instead of trying to negotiate in good faith, they just engage in unfair labor practices over and over and over again.
“This is the stuff that’s been happening in history, whether it is at Starbucks, or whether it was at the automotive line in Detroit, or whether it was the fields of Delano, California. This is the stuff that happens when corporate power does not want to give way to worker power. […]
“It is a tough time in this country right now. Everything is going through the roof: prices are going through the roof, corporate profits are going through the roof, CEO pay is going through the roof. The one thing that is not keeping up is the pay and benefits of workers that are making this happen every day. So what you’re doing right now matters […] because the only way we have any type of real power, any type of real chance for working-class people to have any type of leverage against the rich and the powerful is when they unionize, they organize, and they fight back together. So thank you so much. We’re here in support.”
Last month Senator Gallego called on Starbucks to stop its union-busting efforts and negotiate a fair contract its unionized workers.
12/12/25