Oviedo Starbucks baristas say they’re on strike for a living wage

Mikaela West recently had to cut back on the amount of groceries she can buy in order to afford a dentist visit to fix a hole in her tooth. 

And even when she was able to save the money for the procedure, the 24-year-old Starbucks barista said she found it difficult to get the time she needed for the dentist visit approved by management at work. She was finally able to schedule it recently, but only because she’s been on strike with about 20 of her coworkers at the Oviedo store. 

“It’s very hard [to get time off from work], especially here at our store. A lot of people get denied time off to go to the doctor,” she said as honks in response to the picket line on the corner of East Mitchell Hammock Road and City Plaza Way punctuated the sound of passing cars. “We are told ‘We cannot accommodate your absence’, even if it’s something that was put in two months, three months in advance.”

The Oviedo store — one of two unionized Starbucks locations in Central Florida of the 640 total nationwide, according to Starbucks Workers United — joined the five-week nationwide strike on Thursday, Dec. 11. The overall strike started on Nov. 13 after contract negotiations stalled. 

Kevin Beljan, a 36-year-old shift supervisor at the Oviedo store, said about two-thirds of the 30-person staff there is refusing to work in an effort to pressure the coffee chain to listen to their demands, which center primarily on being provided a “living wage” and lessening the wage gap between company executives and its lower-level employees. 

“It would take one day’s worth of their profits to get to basically what we’re asking for, and they won’t budge,” Beljan said. “They can pay a CEO almost $100 million, but they can’t give someone like me, who’s worked for this company for almost 12 years, more than 60 cents [raise each year].”

We’re just asking for a livable wage,” Beljan said. “They’re offering bread crumbs when they have a bread loaf in front of them that in a lifetime they could not fully eat.”

The manager inside the store would not comment for this article. In a statement sent to Oviedo Community News on Monday, Jaci Anderson, a spokesperson for Starbucks, said pay and benefits average $30 per hour for hourly employees. Beljan said that despite a long tenure and a supervisor role he makes far less than that. 

“People choose to work here and stay here — our turnover is less than half the industry average, and we receive more than a million job applications every year,” Anderson wrote. 

She added that stores have seen minimal disruption from the strike and that they are ready to continue negotiations. 

“As we’ve said, 99% of our 17,000 U.S. locations remain open and [are] welcoming customers — including many the union publicly stated would strike but never closed or have since reopened.”

Beljan said Starbucks refuses to negotiate in good faith, not entertaining their expressed demands after negotiations stalled six months ago. He said the Oviedo store is currently being run by two manager-level employees and several employees from other stores, and added that the number of unionized stores going on strike is continuing to increase across the country.

West said she’s one of the few employees at the Oviedo store who lives in the city, saying it’s too expensive for them to afford housing here. She said she’s able to swing it by finding a “cheap place with a roommate”. Beljan agreed, saying he used to live here but had to move away as prices increased. He lives in Sanford and commutes to work. 

“I own a small business. That’s the only way I can afford to work here, because I have a way to supplement my income,” he said. 

He added that he could have been promoted, but doing so would disqualify him from being in the union — something he’s not willing to do. 

“[Leaving the union’] would mean turning my back on all of them and pretend none of this is happening,” he said. 

According to the latest U.S. Census data, Seminole County’s median monthly mortgage, including other costs such as taxes, insurance and utilities, is $1,900 while the median monthly rent, including additional costs, is $1,700. That’s up from $1,700 and $1,400 in 2023, respectively. 

West said other things the union is fighting Starbucks on are policies they see as unethical, such as controlling their wardrobe down to the color of socks they wear. She and Beljan complained of unpleasant conditions that cause employees high amounts of stress. 

“Some days it’ll be pretty good, you know? We’ll be having fun. We’ll be joking. More times than not it’s very stressful. I personally have gone home several times and cried because it’s stressful,” West said. “You work unfair hours for minimal pay, sometimes you can’t even really stop to go to the bathroom. And it’s exhausting, it’s stressful and it’s taxing.” 

Besides success at the bargaining table, West said she hopes the strike makes people realize the money they’re spending at Starbucks isn’t going to the people serving them but to the top employees. 

“It’s going to support a CEO who is valued at $50,000 an hour, versus the people who are learning their names, learning their children’s names, recognizing their cars on sight, and the ones who are genuinely caring about them as a person, versus their wallet,” she said. 

She said the union encourages people to patronize other local coffee shops, calling out Rethink Food and Drink nextdoor, who she said has been supportive of their efforts, and to donate to the strikers’ GoFundMe, which has raised $925 at press time. 

“It’s been really nice seeing the community support. People have come to get their coffee and end up turning away and going to one of these local places or giving their money to the baristas directly,” she said.