Shortly after Oct. 7, the Starbucks Workers United union tweeted, “Solidarity with Palestine” along with a picture of a bulldozer tearing down a border fence during Hamas’s attack on Israel on X, according to the New York Post. In a statement on Starbucks’ website on Oct. 17, a representative of Starbucks said about the tweet, “Unfortunately, as violence against the innocent in the region continues to escalate, some people are mistakenly tying these remarks to us, because Workers United and its affiliates
and members continue to use our name, logo and intellectual property.”
After Workers United refused to “cease and desist from using the Starbucks name and branding and disengage from dialogue misrepresenting the Company’s position on the Israel-Hamas war,” Starbucks filed a lawsuit against the union, according to Starbucks’ website. However, the coffee company’s action sparked outrage from many on social media who presumed Starbucks’ stance to be supporting Israel, prompting the start of the Starbucks boycott, according to an article from NBC News. The hashtag #starbucks- boycott on TikTok now has almost 50 million videos, according to the TikTok app.
As a show of solidarity with Palestine, many students are protesting against Starbucks, Starbucks employee and senior Annabelle Chao said.
In a school-wide survey conducted by The Union, from a pool of 160 students, 40% of students said that they are participating in the Starbucks boycott. Although Chao has seen fewer young adults frequent the Starbucks where she works, there hasn’t been a significant difference in the number of people who regularly buy from her location of Starbucks, she said.There has been a growing trend on social media for many people to boycott Starbucks, sometimes with no idea about why they are doing so, said senior Arliya Ghosh, who is participating in the Starbucks boycott. People have to care enough for the boycott to make a difference, Ghosh said.“A similar boycott happened during the Black Lives Matter movement where people said to boycott Starbucks and many other businesses,” Ghosh said. “What ended up happening was that when the BLM movement died down, and it wasn’t so popular, everyone started supporting those businesses again.”
Since Starbucks is so widely available and consistent with how they make their drinks, it is a convenient place for people to shop, and many people will probably go back to Starbucks after the movement dies down, Ghosh said. “I know that I cannot contribute a lot to help stop the war; I know that by not purchasing
Starbucks as I used to do, even though it’s a very small impact, doing something small is better than doing nothing,” senior Ashley Ramirez said.
Ramirez sees Philz Coffee as a better alternative for buying coffee because it is a Palestinian-founded business, Ramirez said. There are many businesses that have their own opinions on the conflict and people should educate themselves on what companies they choose to support, Ramirez said. “No matter how many people are made aware of Starbucks’ opinion on the situation, people still value their own convenience over something that is not happening in their own country,” Chao said. “People are still coming in no matter what.”
Although it may seem like the efforts people have made to boycott have not made a difference, Ramirez has seen multiple Starbucks locations in San Francisco close but she acknowledges that there is no proof that these Starbucks have shut down because of the protests, she said.
“My generation is doing a fantastic job by showing their support within this war,” Ramirez
said. “I’m going to be honest: it’s a very small fraction of our generation that is actually doing something and others are simply ignoring what is going on. But for the people who are within our generation that are actually helping and raising their voices, I genuinely think there is a big chance for change in the future within our government.”