Starbucks workers are still without a labor deal four years after their first union win. Here’s why

Starbucks workers and supporters picket as part of an open-ended strike pushing for higher wages and improved labor practices outside the Empire State Building Starbucks location in New York City on December 4, 2025. Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu/Getty Images

August Code works at the first ever Starbucks location to unionize in 2021. But four years after that vote, he and his co-workers in Buffalo, New York, are still waiting on their union contract.

“I would have imagined we would have seen a contract a long time ago,” Code told CNN. “To think we don’t have a contract four years later, yeah, that’s upsetting. I didn’t think we’d be at this point.”

Tuesday is the anniversary of the first union win at Starbucks . The union-organizing campaign there has been one of the biggest successes in t