Perspective: Starbucks strike continues this week, while some are out in the economic cold, others are just fine

“Seven-hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir, you tell me the world’s changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name,” Bruce Springsteen, Youngstown

By Bloomingtonian Staff

Bloomington, Indiana – December 3, 2025

Out on Indiana Avenue this week, the scene was pretty simple.

On one side of the glass, baristas wrapped in scarves and gloves stood in the snow holding signs that said things like “Don’t cross our picket line” and “No contract, no coffee.” On the other side, people in warm coats sat with laptops and $7 drinks, the green mermaid glowing over their shoulders.

That’s the whole story in one frame: some people are out in the economic cold, and some people are doing just fine.

“Delete this stupid political protest…”

When I posted photos of the strike, the messages started rolling into The Bloomingtonian inbox.

“Delete this stupid political protest st… Not everyone in Bloomington is a f*ing liberal lover.”

“Lazy, entitled wokey.”

“Y’all should post others protesting for NO ABORTION. Why pick a political side????”

Those are direct quotes from people who live here. They weren’t arguing about facts, or asking what the strike was about. They just wanted the coverage erased.

So here’s the explainer for anyone who still thinks this is about “leftist activists” and not about work, wages, and power.

Who’s actually on strike?

These aren’t professional protesters flown in from Portland.

They’re baristas who live here, pay rent here, and go home to small apartments after closing shifts. They’re members of Starbucks Workers United, a union formed by Starbucks workers around the country who are trying to get basic things: predictable schedules, safe staffing, fair pay, and for the company to stop breaking labor law when people organize.

That last part isn’t hyperbole. Administrative law judges with the National Labor Relations Board have already found that Starbucks repeatedly violated federal labor law while trying to stop workers from unionizing — including illegally firing pro-union employees at a Madison, Wisconsin store and refusing to rehire one of them. In another case, a different NLRB judge ruled that Starbucks illegally threatened workers by telling them their wages and benefits would be “essentially frozen” if they voted for a union, even after the company had publicly announced nationwide pay increases on its internal “Partner Hub.”

These are federal findings, not rumors on TikTok. Starbucks, a multi-billion-dollar corporation with an army of lawyers, is the one being told it broke the law.

So when local baristas here decide to stand in the snow instead of quietly making lattes, they’re standing inside that national context.

“This is just politics” – no, it’s class

One of the messages we got insisted we were “picking a side” politically by covering the strike, and demanded that for “balance” we should also cover anti-abortion protests. (And in the past, we have covered anti-Abortion protests)

But that’s not how news works.

This is a labor story. It’s about employees withholding their labor from a specific employer over working conditions and alleged unfair labor practices. It’s no more “partisan” than a story about teachers bargaining with a school district or UAW members striking an auto plant. It’s news.

But we’ve reached a point where any challenge to corporate power gets shoved into the culture-war box. If workers stand up to a billion-dollar company, some people automatically hear “liberal protest” instead of “working-class people trying to improve their jobs.”

That’s not an accident. For decades, politicians and corporate PR have worked very hard to make “union” sound like an outside political tribe instead of what it actually is: workers at a specific workplace banding together to negotiate as a group instead of one-by-one.

What “right to work” really means here

Indiana is a “right-to-work” state. A lot of folks hear that phrase and think it means “freedom” or “you can’t be forced into a union.”

Here’s what it actually means in practice:

• Workers at a union shop get the wage increases and protections the union negotiates.
• But the law lets them opt out of paying dues.
• The union is still legally required to represent them, file grievances for them, and bargain for them.

It’s like letting some people ride the bus for free while still expecting the bus to run on time. Over time, that arrangement weakens unions. That’s the point.

So when people sneer that baristas “just want handouts,” remember: in Indiana, even if Starbucks workers win a union contract, plenty of their co-workers will get the benefits without paying a dime toward the costs of bargaining for it.

A K-shaped economy, with a mermaid logo

We keep hearing that the economy is “doing great”: the stock market’s up, unemployment’s low, tech companies are chasing AI profits.

But what we actually live in is a K-shaped economy. People with assets — stock portfolios, home equity, investments — are climbing the upper branch of the K. People who live paycheck to paycheck ride the lower branch, watching rent, food, and medical costs rise faster than their wages.

AI is already being used as justification to lay off white-collar workers, automate office jobs, and “streamline” newsrooms and call centers. Yet, as of today, AI still can’t un-jam an espresso machine, mop a greasy floor at close, or deal with a drunk guy screaming at the counter because his order’s wrong.

In other words: the person making your drink is still a human being, and probably not one with a big investment portfolio to fall back on.

Inside vs. outside

Several of the strikers told me something that stuck with me: longtime regulars — people whose names and orders they know — walked right past the picket line and went inside.

The workers said they’ll remember who crossed, even if there’s nothing they can do about it.

That’s the emotional reality of a strike: people you thought were on your side show you, in one small moment, exactly which side of the glass they’re on.

Why this coverage matters

Here’s another thing worth noting: in six years of running The Bloomingtonian, I’ve covered Trump rallies, Black Lives Matter protests, shootings, fatal crashes, homelessness, and all kinds of local political fights.

Nothing has generated as many angry messages in our inbox as this Starbucks strike.

That tells me a few things:

• Corporate PR around Starbucks is powerful. People feel personally loyal to the brand.
• A lot of folks have absorbed the idea that unions are radical, illegitimate, or “from the outside,” even when the workers are their own neighbors.
• And some people really, really don’t want local journalism documenting working-class people standing up for themselves.

Tough.

The job of a local journalist isn’t to protect anyone’s feelings about their pumpkin-spice latte. It’s to document what’s actually happening in town — including when low-paid service workers decide they’ve had enough and risk their jobs to say so.

If you still think this isn’t your fight

Maybe you’ve never worked a low-wage job. Maybe you have a good salary and benefits, and you’re sure none of this will touch you.

But remember: every time unions are weakened, the floor under everyone’s wages drops a little. The benefits you enjoy — weekends, overtime pay, the idea of a 40-hour work week — didn’t fall out of the sky. Workers fought for them, and in some cases bled for them.

Today that fight happens outside a Starbucks on Indiana Avenue instead of a steel mill or a coal mine. The signs are hand-painted, the coffee outside is free, and the company on the other side of the glass has a social-justice-flavored ad campaign.

But it’s the same struggle.

So if you see those baristas out in the cold this week, you don’t have to agree with every tactic or every slogan. But at least understand what’s actually going on:

It’s not “stupid political protest s**t.”

It’s working-class people trying to carve out a little bit of dignity — and a fair share of the wealth they help create — in an economy that would prefer they stay quiet, keep smiling, and keep the drinks coming.

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