Why New Seasons settled a first contract while Starbucks remains unresolved
First contracts are complicated. Anyone who has worked in labor relations or employee relations knows that. They are usually the most prolonged and most painful phases of the bargaining process, especially when you are dealing with multiple locations or a national footprint.
Which is why the timing of these labor disputes is interesting.
Two long-running labor campaigns in the retail and service sectors hit inflection points at roughly the same time, the 2025 holiday season.
One ended with a ratified first contract and a strike averted just before Christmas.
The other escalated a weeks-old strike into same-day unfair labor practice activity at distribution centers on both coasts, including arrests, with first contracts still unresolved.
Same labor law. Same economy. Same calendar. Very different structural conditions.
New Seasons Market: When leverage has an address
Workers represented by New Seasons Labor Union, affiliated with UE, ratified their first collective bargaining agreement with New Seasons Market by a reported 98 percent margin, avoiding a planned Christmas-period strike.
From a labor relations perspective, the setup matters more than the slogans.
- 853 employees
- 10 stores
- One metropolitan area
After an extended bargaining period, the union authorized a strike by more than 80 percent, set a clear deadline, and tied escalation to a high-revenue period. In the final days, the parties reached an agreement.
Reported contract terms included wage increases, scheduling rules, just-cause standards, grievance procedures, and some job-specific working condition changes.
You can debate whether those outcomes are modest or meaningful. That is not the point.
The point is this: a concentrated workforce in a single market created a very clear economic and operational risk. Management could see it, measure it, and decide whether to resolve it.
That is often what closes first contracts.
Starbucks: National bargaining is a different animal
Now compare that to Starbucks Workers United and Starbucks.
This is not a single-market negotiation. SBWU is attempting to bargain a national framework agreement, layered with individual store-level contracts, across a geographically dispersed system.
That reality drives everything that follows.
This week, SBWU expanded its unfair labor practice strike activity again by staging same-day protests at Starbucks distribution and roasting facilities on both coasts, including sites in York County, Pennsylvania, and Minden, Nevada. Protesters picketed and, in some cases, blocked access points. After repeated warnings, law enforcement cited or arrested multiple participants, primarily for trespass or failure to disperse. No injuries were reported, and operations continued.
The move upstream was intentional. When store-level pressure does not compel movement, unions seek alternative leverage points.
But it also highlights the challenge of national campaigns: pressure gets spread out.
SBWU is not avoiding concentration because it prefers spectacle. It lacks a single city, region, or bargaining table that could serve as a choke point. Scale and coordination are the tools available, not focus.
That explains the recent escalation pattern:
- Expanded ULP strike activity
- Same-day actions at eastern and western distribution centers
- Law enforcement involvement tied to access and trespass issues
This is less about messaging and more about math. Distributed pressure is harder to translate into a single decision point within a large, layered organization.
Starbucks absorbs that pressure across:
- Thousands of stores
- Multiple regions
- Multiple legal and operational channels
Risk does not disappear. It becomes manageable rather than decisive.
Why one campaign closed, and the other hasn’t
This is not about commitment, motivation, or public sympathy. It is about leverage.
New Seasons
- Local footprint
- Unified bargaining unit
- One economic window
- One decision to make
Starbucks
- National footprint
- Fragmented bargaining units
- Rolling escalation
- No single settlement trigger
New Seasons faced a defined, time-bound risk that management could evaluate and resolve. Starbucks faces ongoing, distributed risk that can be managed, litigated, and delayed.
That difference explains a lot.
The practical takeaway
This is not a story about who is “winning.” It is a reminder about how outcomes get shaped.
- First contracts are complicated, and the campaign structure makes them harder or easier
- Localized bargaining tends to resolve faster, for better or worse
- National strategies trade speed for reach
- Visibility does not always equal leverage
- Strike authorization votes tied to real economic risk still matter
For employers, the lesson is simple. The most critical variable here is not how loud a campaign gets. It is how closely pressure lines up with operational outcomes.
That is the real contrast between these two stories.
