Georgetown Students Against Starbucks (GSAS) hosted union workers at a Feb. 22 panel followed by a rally in Red Square to call on Georgetown University to end its contract with Aramark, the university’s primary food service provider which has a license agreement with Starbucks.

The panel, which took place on the national day of action for college chapters of Starbucks Workers United, featured union representatives from Starbucks Workers United (SWU), an organization of Starbucks employees trying to organize unions; Georgetown Alliance of Graduate Employees (GAGE), the labor union for graduate students at Georgetown; and Unite Here Local 25, a union of hotel, restaurant and casino workers in the Washington, D.C. metro area. After the panel, attendees walked to Red Square, where student organizers projected a 115-slide slideshow against the wall of the Intercultural Center (ICC) listing the labor rights violations that Starbucks has committed.

Valli Pendyala (SFS ’27), a member of GSAS who helped organize the panel and rally, said that even though the university’s contract is with Aramark and not Starbucks, it has the power to decide whether to renew its contract with Aramark based on the food service’s license with Starbucks.

“Ultimately Georgetown has the power in this contract,” Pendyala said. “They choose to employ Aramark. It’s not like Aramark just marches onto this campus and decides that they’re going to start feeding us. So even though Aramark technically has the contract with Starbucks, it’s Georgetown that decides it’s with Starbucks.”

A university spokesperson said the university does not have a contract with Starbucks and that employees in the Starbucks in Leavey Center are union-represented Aramark dining employees.

“We are continuing to look closely at this important issue,” the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Starbucks said that the company has taken steps to improve the partner experience, including through investing upwards of nine billion dollars and increasing total hourly compensation by 50% in the past four years.

“Our partners are at the core of all we do,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya. “While we remain longstanding advocates of civil discourse, our focus is on fulfilling our promise to offer a bridge to a better future for all partners—through competitive pay, industry-leading benefits for part-time work and our continued efforts to negotiate fair contracts for partners at stores that have chosen union representation.”

The panelists discussed their union efforts, the influence of other union strikes like SAG-AFTRA and United Auto Workers (UAW) and the role of union contracts in combating wealth disparities.

Panelist Meghin Martin, a former partner at Starbucks and member of SWU, said Starbucks has refused to engage in good faith bargaining, a type of negotiation in which both parties must sincerely resolve to reach a collective bargaining agreement.

“Their whole game plan is running the union dry, wait as long as they possibly can and hope that we either just give up, we run out of money,” Martin said at the panel. “They’re hoping for decertifications. But decertification can’t happen until after one year of good faith bargaining and they refuse to do that.”

Rosie Click (GRD ’29), a member of GAGE who spoke on the panel, said she uses her experience fighting for higher wages for graduate students to educate her own students on unions.

“I’ll wear my GAGE T-shirt to go teach to start those conversations, especially for undergraduate students who may be going on to positions that are either union jobs or could be unionized,” Click said at the panel.

At the rally which followed the panel event, organizers passed out slips of paper mimicking a report card for Starbucks, on which they gave the company a grade of “F.” The report card included a link to a form to send an email to President DeGioia’s office calling on the university to end its contract with and divest from Starbucks. The university does not have a contract with Starbucks but rather Aramark.

Elijah Ward (CAS ’26), a busser at The Bazaar by José Andrés who spoke on the panel, said winning union recognition at his workplace gave him the inspiration to support Starbucks workers.

“The students of the world are watching,” Ward said at the rally. “And that is critical for us to win this campaign, which we are going to win this campaign.”

Elinor Clark (CAS ’27), a former Starbucks employee who won a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) case against the company and helped organize the panel and rally, said students can help cut off Starbucks’s revenue at Georgetown and demand the university move its $5 million in Starbucks stock.

“I’m one of many many cases as you have seen, and the government telling Starbucks to stop union busting is not working,” Clark said at the rally. “So it’s up to us, the people, the workers, the students, to put financial pressure on Starbucks to quit their union busting campaign.”

Pendyala said they are optimistic about future conversations and negotiations with the university.

“We’ve had some very productive conversations with administration. We’ve met with the ACBP, the Advisory Committee on Business Practices,” Pendyala said.

“It’s gonna be a long process still, but we’re very happy with where the campaign is going. And we’re very excited for the future.”

This article was updated Feb. 26 to include a comment from a Starbucks spokesperson.