Starbucks hit by strike as 2,000 unionized workers walkout on Red Cup Day

More than 2,000 unionized Starbucks baristas walked out on the job Thursday, crippling some 100 stores across the country on one of the company’s busiest — and most profitable — days.

Members of the Starbucks Workers United union walked out during the java giant’s much-anticipated Red Cup Day, a holiday mug giveaway that draws lines of customers before the stores open at the crack of dawn.

Instead, the workers handed out their own red union branded cups to customers.

The workers were protesting the company’s “union-busting tactics,” the organization said in a statement.

The baristas say they are “underpaid, forced to run understaffed stores and they don’t have consistent schedules they can rely on,” according to the union.

They also claim that Starbucks is not bargaining in “good faith” and that management has walked away from the table during collective bargaining contract discussions.

Some 260 stores, representing nearly 7,000 workers have been organized, according to the union.

“The goal was to not open the stores today,” said a union spokesperson, Casey Moore, who said Starbucks was not made aware which stores would be targeted.

On Twitter, the union said Thursday’s walkout was its largest coordinated action so far. It posted photos of baristas on a sidewalk in Queens holding up signs saying, “No Contract, No Coffee” and “Full Staffing Now.”

Starbucks said in a statement: “We are aware that union demonstrations are scheduled at a small number of our U.S. company-owned stores. In those locations where partners choose to participate, we respect their right to engage in lawful protest activity.”

“In those stores where partners have elected union-representation, we have been willing and continue to urge the union to meet us at the bargaining table to move the process forward in good faith,” the company added.

The National Labor Relations Board has issued a number of complaints against Starbucks and the agency’s judges have ruled against the company in a few cases.

The one-day strike represents the largest walk-out to date in the year-long struggle between the union and Seattle-based Starbucks, which has been bucking the organizing effort. A store in Buffalo, NY was the first Starbucks location to organize and be represented by the union.

Workers at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Manhattan have been on strike since Oct. 25, though the store remains open.

Employees at that store complained about unsanitary conditions, including mold in the ice machines, bed bug sightings and more recently a moth problem in its coffee bean storage area.

An inspection last week by the Department of Agriculture and Markets found mold and moths in the store, according to report in The City.