How one Reno resident helped lead a local strike against the coffee giant.
Cover: Aharon Williams is the union delegate for the only unionized Starbucks store in Reno, Nev. who helped lead a strike in December 2025. Photo Lynn Lazaro / Sierra Nevada Ally
Lynn Lazaro || On a recent cold winter day in Reno, Aharon Williams and some colleagues gathered at the Lakeside Drive Starbucks in Reno with a red wagon full of picket signs, food and hand warmers. They’re baristas at that Starbucks who gathered to protest the store reopening amid an ongoing strike.
“You don’t have to cross the picket line,” Williams’ voice boomed through a bullhorn as a customer attempted to place an order in the drive-thru. Moments later, a barista’s voice asked the customer to repeat what they said through the speaker.
When Williams first applied for a job at Starbucks, he wasn’t aiming to join the only unionized store in Reno. He had originally applied to the South Meadows location, but ended up landing a position at the Lakeside location seven months ago.
Now, he’s the store’s union delegate.
Williams has been interested in unions since the COVID-19 pandemic, but his passion for it grew when he learned about the first Starbucks store unionization in Buffalo, N.Y. in December 2021. Since then, he’s been keeping up with Starbucks Workers United’s (SWU) labor fight.
“Starbucks is known for being such a progressive company and having all these great benefits, and you’re thinking, ‘If you got it so good, why are you unionizing?’” Williams said. “And so you start researching and wanting to know the truth.”
On their website, Starbucks boasts that the value of worker wages, including benefits, is $30 an hour. But, not all Starbucks workers work enough hours to receive these benefits.
Less than two weeks before the strike in Northern Nevada, Starbucks agreed to a $35 million settlement with more than 15,000 New York City workers for denying stable schedules and cutting hours to keep employees from qualifying for benefits. The company still faces more than 600 open cases of unfair labor practice cases filed by the National Labor Relations Board.
The union is demanding that Starbucks fully resolve the hundreds of legal issues impacting baristas, including charges for illegal firing and retaliation for union activities.
On November 13, when the company launched its annual Red Cup Day to offer customers free reusable holiday cups, SWU started the Red Cup Rebellion—an Unfair Labor Practices (ULP) strike against Starbucks.
As of December 11, the open-ended strike included over 3,800 baristas in more than 130 cities across the nation. Starbucks Workers United is calling it the largest work stoppage in Starbucks history.
On December 15, the Lakeside store joined in the national protest. When it was time for a vote strike, Williams said that decision was unanimous.
“We approved the strike 13 to nothing.”
Williams said that union demands aren’t about individual gain, but the needs of baristas as a whole. A one dollar raise or giving benefits to all workers regardless of hours are life-changing things, he said.
“I have medical issues, so not having to pay out of pocket for medical expenses or even a couple hundred dollars a month [for insurance]…that’s something that can go towards utility bills or groceries.”
A Rising Cost of Living
Williams has lived in Reno since he was six years old. Over that time, he’s watched the region change in ways that don’t always benefit working-class residents.
Over the past decade, manufacturing and technology businesses, such as Tesla and Panasonic, have established or expanded in the Reno-Sparks area, creating thousands of jobs and more demand for housing.
“For me, the number one issue here locally is just having enough affordable places. They want to build high-end apartments and housing to maximize profits,” Williams said. He doesn’t believe that developers are interested in building affordable homes anymore.
The median sales price for a single-family home in November in Reno was $660,000—more than 10 times the median salary in Nevada of $64,412. That means a 10 percent down payment on a home would cost more than one year’s salary.
For Starbucks workers, it’s even more. In Reno, wages for Starbucks baristas range from $15.25 to $17.31 plus tips, and for shift supervisors, it’s $19.37 to $21.99 an hour, according to job listings posted on its website. That calculates to roughly $31,700 to $36,000 a year for full-time work for baristas, and $40,290 to $45,740 for shift supervisors.
That isn’t enough to meet basic needs in Washoe County. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Living Wage Calculator, a single adult working full time in Washoe County needs to earn $23.61 an hour or a $49,109.80 annual salary to meet basic needs.
“People who work 40 hours shouldn’t be struggling,” said Williams. “If you’re giving a third of your life to something, you shouldn’t be choosing between groceries and utilities, or having to take government subsidies while working full time.”
In a November 5 press release, Starbucks claimed that Workers United is proposing a 65% immediate pay increase and 77% over three years. For Reno workers, that would immediately raise their starting wage to anywhere between $25.16 to $28.56. While this number starts at nearly $2 more than the MIT living wage for Washoe County, it only makes a meaningful difference if the worker is a full-time employee.
According to an article published by Nation’s Restaurant News in early December, the union claimed that Starbucks is misrepresenting negotiations. A barista in Buffalo, N.Y. stated that the company was given a list of options as a starting point for negotiations. They claim that Starbucks added the value of those options together and presented it as one demand.
“Starbucks has an interesting way of calculating their numbers,” Williams said. “Like when they talk about benefits, they throw out a $30 an hour number, and people think that we’re making $30 an hour, but that’s just not true.”
Williams is also taking into account the rising costs of groceries, rent and insurance. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of food rose 23 percent and the cost of housing rose 24 percent from January 2021 to January of 2025.
“All those things happening at once, it’s just really eating away at the ability to deal with anything that goes wrong outside my normal living expenses,” he said.
Williams also believes that rising prices are contributing to frustration among workers who work hard for a company, but continue to struggle to get by.
“There’s a real frustration that grows, and so that chance to collectively bargain is a real appealing idea,” he said.
In 2024, 16 million workers in the United States were represented by a union, 2.6 million more than in 2020. In Nevada, that rate is 12.1%, higher than the national rate of 9.9%.
But the struggle to keep up with expenses even affected some workers’ choice to continue picketing. Some union members had to leave the picket line to work their second job during the strike. After nearly seven days of striking, some went back to work inside the Lakeside store, allowing it to open its drive-thru and café to customers.
This is what led Williams along with others to shut down drive-thru operations 30 minutes into picketing on that cold winter day on Dec. 23.
Building Power and Solidarity
In a right-to-work state like Nevada, where employers can fire you with no cause, fear around union activity is common. Much of Williams’ work involves educating coworkers about their legal protections, labor rights and where to find more information for themselves.
“There is always [union] interest coming in. It’s just dealing with the union busting and the fear element,” Williams said.
Williams sees himself as a source of information for anyone interested in unionizing, and he believes that the relationships he’s building with fellow workers and the information he’s providing strengthens union efforts.
“You want people to feel involved in their own future. You want people to have ownership,” he said.
Increasing buy-in is important to Williams. One person against Starbucks doesn’t have the same effect as a group against the coffee giant.
The beginning of the Lakeside store’s strike coincided with action at the Starbucks Carson Valley Distribution Center in Minden, where out-of-state union baristas and allies delayed deliveries as part of the Red Cup Rebellion. Williams’ store picketed from 7 a.m. to noon, and was later joined by the Minden picketers for an afternoon rally.
Among those allies were members of the Northern Nevada Democratic Socialists of America (NNDSA), who helped staff the picket line in Minden by distributing food and warm drinks.
“You want to have strength in numbers, so I totally appreciate them coming out and supporting,” Williams said.
He emphasized that Northern Nevada’s participation—though small—carries symbolic weight. While the Reno store has finished its 11-day strike, stores across the nation are still participating in the open-ended ULP strike.
“I wanted to highlight that here in Northern Nevada we’re part of the bigger picture,” Williams said. “It’s important that somebody in Northern Nevada represents the larger labor movement.”
He says all these small steps add up, and every action counts.
“The big success of the strike is letting people know what it’s about,” he said. Customers going through the drive-thru gave Williams the opportunity to do what he does best as the union delegate: share information.
Whether shouting explanations through a bullhorn by the drive-thru, or answering questions from passersby, he made sure people knew why they were picketing.
“It’s not just about us complaining and demanding things, it’s about getting Starbucks back to the negotiating table.”
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