In September 2023, Georgetown Students Against Starbucks (GSAS) began fighting to pressure Starbucks to end its ruthless union-busting campaign against its own workers. Earlier that year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a government agency that regulates collective bargaining and prevents unfair labor practices, found that Starbucks had committed hundreds of unfair labor violations, including withholding benefits, closing stores and firing workers.
Despite Starbucks’ “egregious and widespread” violations of labor laws and “employees’ fundamental rights,” according to an NLRB judge, Georgetown University maintains its financial and symbolic investments in the coffee conglomerate, implicitly supporting illegal attacks on workers in the process.
Georgetown’s funding of Starbucks and the company’s union-busting practices inspired GSAS to launch a petition Oct. 10, 2023, calling for the termination of the university’s relationship with Starbucks. Over 500 community members who supported bringing an alternate coffee supplier to campus and divesting from the company signed the petition.
While Georgetown’s food service provider, Aramark, officially operates the Leavey Center Starbucks through a licensing agreement, the administration has input about which company is housed in this location. With the current Aramark contract ending in 2027, the university must commit to replacing Starbucks with a union-friendly coffee company. In doing so, Georgetown will send a powerful message to companies that students will not tolerate their suppression of worker unionization.
Our GSAS campaign sent proposals to the Advisory Committee on Business Practices (ACBP) and the Committee on Investment and Social Responsibility (CISR) to cut Georgetown’s ties with Starbucks in February 2024. Our advocacy efforts to both groups were promising, and we were close to reaching an agreement with Georgetown’s administration when Starbucks finally agreed to come to the bargaining table in March 2024.
At the time, we believed Starbucks would fulfill its commitment, and the Georgetown administration believed they could use their shareholder power to hold Starbucks accountable. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly to GSAS, Starbucks has failed to uphold its promise to bargain in good faith, jeopardizing workers and inhibiting the contract negotiation process foundational to United States labor law.
Since Starbucks’ good-faith bargaining commitment, negotiations between Starbucks and Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) have deteriorated so significantly that an estimated 5,000 baristas went on strike leading up to Christmas. Despite spending $200 million on a new CEO, Starbucks claims the union’s proposals to give baristas a livable wage raise are “unsustainable.” As a result, SBWU has filed an additional 36 unfair labor claims against Starbucks, alleging the company “engaged in bad faith bargaining over economic issues.” More notably, Georgetown’s investments in Starbucks have increased significantly since our campaign was first launched, from 49,957 shares worth $4,498,740 in August 2023 to 117,453 shares worth $11,450,493 in November 2024.
Our university has not only maintained but also increased its investments in a corporation that, according to the NLRB, violates labor rights, and also contradicts the Jesuit values Georgetown holds as guiding principles.
GSAS paused our campaign last February because we believed the company had heard nationwide concerns and was truly committed to respecting its workers. In our meeting with the ACBP last year, a committee member told GSAS it was unfair of us to call for justice from the coffee conglomerate if we could not also have faith the company would engage in fair negotiations with its employees, referencing the Jesuit value of “Faith that Does Justice.” We called off our initial campaign to show that we trusted the corporation to abide by its word and treat employees with dignity.
We students must leverage our power as key components of Starbucks’ target demographic to support ethical working practices and refuse to further the company’s bottom line. Therefore, we will resume our fight to cut the university’s ties with the company if Starbucks does not return to the bargaining table by the end of February.
If Starbucks refuses to negotiate an equitable contract with Starbucks Workers United by Feb. 28, 2025, we urge all students to join the renewed campaign and apply more pressure than ever before to the union-busting company. Starbucks has blatantly betrayed the faith we instilled in them, and so we must again embark on the fight for justice.
On behalf of Georgetown Students Against Starbucks, Elinor Clark is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences, Valli Pendyala is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service, Connor Henry and Fiona Naughton are juniors in the School of Foreign Service.