NYU’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America demanded that university leadership publicly support the Starbucks workers’ union in a rally on Friday. The group threatened to reinstate a campaign against the Starbucks location on West Fourth Street if President Linda Mills and senior administrator Owen Moore do not respond by March 7.
About a dozen students gathered outside Bobst Library before making their way to the Kimmel Center for University Life to deliver a letter to a representative for Mills and Moore, respectively, at each location. YDSA called for the administrators to “pressure” Starbucks to fairly negotiate with its workers’ union amid ongoing bargaining sessions and union expansions, and to replace the West Fourth Street location with a local coffee shop or another Peet’s Coffee.
“Voicing public support for the union would go quite a long way,” LS first-year and YDSA member Sophia Pandya said in an interview with WSN. “New York is a union town, and we should be a union campus. That reflects how many students feel, and for NYU to say it supports unions, that aligns with the values and messages that we purport to uphold.”
The group claimed that its Students Against Starbucks initiative last year successfully pushed students to boycott the on-campus location, which accepts Dining Dollars, and that the student body was “overwhelmingly against NYU and Starbucks.” Last year, around 15 students delivered a petition — which garnered over 500 signatures — to Mills demanding the university remove the Starbucks and products from dining halls because of the company’s violation of federal labor laws.
“While the Starbucks brand and our coffee appear in many ways across college and university campuses, most Starbucks locations on campuses are operated and managed by licensees,” Starbucks spokesperson Phil Gee said in a statement to WSN. “Therefore, those working at these locations are employees of the licensee, not Starbucks, and, in most instances, campuses do not have direct contracts with Starbucks.”
The same year, the Student Government Assembly also passed a resolution calling for the university to replace the on-campus Starbucks with a local coffee business for the 2024-25 academic year. In the resolution, the SGA claimed that the location violates NYU’s non-discrimination policy and ethics code, alleging that the company engaged in “child labor, forced labor, sexual harassment and assault and other human rights abuses.”
Throughout its campaign last academic year, YDSA also hosted several rallies outside the Starbucks location on Astor Place. The group organized a daylong strike on Red Cup Day in November 2023 — an annual promotional event where Starbucks customers receive one reusable red cup after purchasing a holiday-themed drink from the store — demanding better working conditions, wages and benefits for Starbucks employees. The Astor Place location, which was one of the only unionized locations near NYU campus, closed last July due to rent hikes.
Cornell University announced that it will terminate its contracts with Starbucks in June 2025 following a court ruling that the company penalized students for not working during academic breaks. Students from schools such as the University of Washington and University of Wisconsin-Madison have also called their administrators to terminate contracts with Starbucks.
“College students are one of Starbucks’ key customer demographics,” Pandya said. “We have a unique position to stand in solidarity with Starbucks workers and leverage that position to demand that they are treated fairly and get fair pay and benefits. As students, we bear a unique responsibility.”
Aashna Miharia contributed reporting.
Update, March 3: This article has been updated with a statement from a Starbucks spokesperson.
Contact Amanda Chen at achen@nyunews.com.
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