PARK SLOPE — Only three months after the Seventh Ave. Starbucks unionized, the coffee retail giant announced it is closing the store on Thursday, Jan. 30. This story is echoed throughout the nation as Starbucks — a public company valued at over $100 billion — battles with its increasingly organized workers. 

“As shareholders we expect Starbucks to engage their unionized employees seeking fair wages and better conditions, not shutter the locations at which they work, and this hits especially close to home,” New York City Comptroller Brad Lander told the Brooklyn Eagle. “This move from Starbucks raises concerns about whether the company is seeking to do right by their employees and come to an agreement. We hope that the company will move forward with negotiations and genuinely seek to do so.”

Starbucks Workers United (SWU) organized a rally for Tuesday, Jan. 28 outside of the Seventh Ave. store in Park Slope, where baristas and community allies plan to protest the closure of the store. In a press release about the rally, SWU said Starbucks refused to negotiate the closures and denied the union’s information request regarding the closures.

“Baristas like me are who show up day in and day out to make the Starbucks experience what it is,” said Jenn Skinner, a shift supervisor and Starbucks worker of over three years. “While baristas are struggling with rising costs, the CEO of Starbucks made $800,000 a day in 2024.” 

The building sold to real estate developer DNA development for over $6 million, according to Crain’s, proving unlikely that the store will reopen in the same location if at all. 

Community members and baristas will speak on the loss of the store, the fight for workplace improvements and Starbucks’ failure to support its baristas, SWU said. The union also demands that the company “return to the bargaining table” and follow through with its 2024 promise to reach an agreement.

“Instead of coming back to the table, Starbucks has been retaliating against us by closing union stores across the country,” said Skinner. “We’re not letting them get away with it. We’re doing what it takes to make sure Brian Niccol and Starbucks executives hear us and commit to settling a union contract with us like they promised to do in 2024.”

Starbucks told workers that it will attempt to relocate the displaced workers, but it has not offered any guarantees, staff told the Brooklyn Paper. 

“I’m proud to represent Park Slope in the New York City Council, a neighborhood that values fairness, community and workers’ rights. It’s deeply disappointing that Starbucks has failed to live up to those values by retaliating and closing down this unionized store in my district,” said Councilmember Shahana Hanif (D-39). “In the midst of an affordability crisis here in Brooklyn, Starbucks workers, like so many others, are struggling to make ends meet. I stand in full solidarity with Park Slope Starbucks workers in demanding that the company return to the bargaining table, negotiate in good faith and end its retaliation against workers who are fighting for a better future.”

A timeline of worker organization efforts

SWU started in 2021 with the unionization of the first store in Buffalo, New York. As of December 2024, the union boasts 500 stores and over 11,000 workers. Brooklyn claims six unionized stores in Park Slope (on Fourth Ave.), Williamsburg, Downtown Brooklyn, New Utrecht, Clinton Hill and DUMBO. 

“Our daily lives are subject to the whims of monolithic institutions that prioritize profits over human lives and make decisions without the consent of those they govern and without input from the people most affected by their decisions,” said Victoria Blair, Fourth Ave. and 11th St. Park Slope partner of two years in February 2024. “We are unionizing because we want that to change … through workplace democratization and the collective power of laborers united in a common cause.”

Starbucks agreed to develop a “foundational framework” to guide negotiations with workers in February 2024. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander described the framework as encouraging, but noted that the company needed to reach a contract with SWU. 

In a worker’s rights review, Lander said, “The Starbucks Board needs to accept responsibility for the companies’ shortcomings and set a clear tone from the top that it will hold management accountable to its commitments to its workers’ freedom of association.” 

In July, the Astor Place Starbucks closed after 30 years of service, only seven months after the workers unionized. Though management of the store claimed that the store closed due to rent increases, the landlord denied increasing the rent and said it was “appreciative of Starbucks’ decades-long tenancy at 21 Astor.” 

In September 2024, the company announced its new CEO Brian Niccols, who was formerly the CEO of Chipotle, where he responded negatively to unionization attempts. Niccols pledged to honor the company’s earlier pledge to the union, but SWU claims that the negotiations have proven unfruitful. 

In December 2024, the union commenced a nationwide strike, alleging that Starbucks failed to reach the promised agreement with the union. SWU also alleged that Starbucks was responsible for more than $100 million in outstanding legal liabilities, and announced that 98% of union partners voted to strike. In New York, picket lines in Buffalo and Manhattan protested outside of closed stores on Tuesday, Dec. 24.

Starbucks announced that 170 stores closed across the country due to the strike, but 98% of its stores remained open as the union only represents around 3% of stores.

In 2025, Starbucks announced the closure of seven stores, and one was the Seventh Ave. store in Park Slope. SWU filed a federal unfair labor practice charge against the company on behalf of the seven stores, alleging that the company retaliated against the workers for unionizing. 

The rally on Tuesday, Jan. 28 is a response to the closure, lack of bargaining with the store about the closure and Starbucks’ failure to guarantee jobs for displaced workers. SWU vowed that its workers will infiltrate other stores in its mission to acquire worker’s rights. Starbucks has not commented on the strike or store closures.