Here's where Starbucks workers are striking in Southern California

Starbucks baristas at some unionized stores across the country are on strike, including locations in Southern California.

Workers at coffee houses in Long Beach, Santa Clarita and Seal Beach walked off the job Thursday on "Red Cup Day" — an annual event where the coffee chain gives out free reusable cups. They joined baristas at the Downtown Disney Starbucks, who started their strike on Saturday and closed down the store.

The strike is part of a nationwide dispute between the union representing workers at more than 550 of the coffee chain's locations and Starbucks, who have been bargaining a contract for more than a year. Last week, unionized baristas voted to authorize a strike, accusing Starbucks of refusing to budge on their demands for higher pay and better hours.

"The cost of living is only going up. We're trying to go to school, we're trying to pay bills and it's just not enough," said Mai Tran, a striking barista at the Downtown Disney location from the picket line on Tuesday. "We just want to serve coffee…and we can't."

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Starbucks said in a statement that it's the unionized workers who are refusing to bargain.

"Our commitment to bargaining hasn’t changed," Starbucks executive Sara Kelly said in a statement last week. "Workers United walked away from the table but if they are ready to come back, we’re ready to talk."

Starbucks said in a statement to LAist Friday that less than one percent of its stores were disrupted during the strike.

Disagreement over wages

One of the big disputes is pay. Starbucks Workers United is demanding a wage bump for baristas that the company says is unreasonable.

Neither side has made their exact proposals public, but Starbucks claims the union's demands are exorbitant and that its current pay and benefits together come out to an average of $30 an hour for baristas, which it called the "best in retail."

The union says its members need higher take home pay to make ends meet, and that limited hours can mean baristas don't actually have access to Starbucks benefits. Workers also point to a recent tracker published by the labor group the AFL-CIO that found that Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol made 6,666 times the median pay of a Starbucks barista in 2024. Niccol was offered tens of millions to leave his post as Chipotle's top executive for Starbucks last year.

" I am on strike because I have just about had it with Brian Nichols, our CEO. His greed is out of control," said Christi Gomeljak, who added that she has worked at Starbucks for more than five years and makes just above $20 an hour. "It would be so easy for them to give us a contract and to treat us fairly."

The strike is open-ended, so it's unclear when it might end. The union has said more stores could join the strike in the days and weeks to come.