The Iowa City Starbucks strike, which began in early December of 2025, ended on December 24 of 2025, making it the longest strike in the store’s history. While the store re-opened its doors following the strike, the workers are still fighting and encouraging consumer participation to ensure Starbucks meets their demands.

“We started a new campaign called Delete the App,” said Scheppmann, offering one way consumers can help support baristas. “So we’re asking people to delete the Starbucks app from their phone.”

By deleting the app, Starbucks customers affect the company’s revenue while not directly harming the workers.

There are plenty of other ways to support the strikes, too. The Starbucks Workers United website— which provides plenty of useful information on the strikes and how to get involved– encourages consumers to sign the “No Contract, No Coffee” pledge and boycott Starbucks until the workers’ demands are met.

Even though the practices causing the strikes remain, Starbucks workers maintain high morale. For one thing, workers know they have been noticed. With hundreds of stores closed for weeks (if not months), Starbucks cannot remain unaware of the situation.

Many of the strikes have also set records. The Iowa City strike lasted three weeks, making it the longest strike in the store’s history. For workers like Scheppmann, this record is a point of pride.

 “It feels good,” Scheppmann said. “My grandpa was a teamster, so he always had a healthy love for striking. I definitely feel that as well.”

And if there is no progress? Then the strikes will continue. But Scheppmann doesn’t worry about that– the community will support the striking baristas no matter what.

“The Union community in Iowa City is always down for a strike, whoever it is,” said Schepmann. “They’re always ready to support someone exercising their rights.”

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A major concern for the guild had been actors’ residuals, which are compensated payments made toward actors if the media they had been previously involved in had been reused. With the streaming service community being more prominent in recent years, these residuals have undergone a significant decrease. Starting rates have lowered for the remittances that they receive.

In conjunction with this issue, the matter of AI had also been raised. With AI’s rapid proliferation, policies haven’t yet caught up with how to protect actors’ rights to compensation whenever their work is utilized in the context of AI. As AI becomes more of a prevalent occurrence across industries such as the one of film and television, the union had demanded for there to be a greater sense of consent for when it comes to its usage of actors’ talents and identities. Those partaking in the strike had called off appearing in publicized platforms, alongside engaging in existing, and ongoing projects.

Image via the Los Angeles Times

The strike lasted a total of 118 days, ending on November 9th, 2023 after the approval of a tentative agreement that had included newly-updated provisions for the actors’ service practices and management. These provisions consisted of increases in minimum wage, streaming bonuses, set restrictions and regulations on the use of AI, as well as better conditions with regards to healthcare and pensions. For reference of a more detailed account of the agreement’s inclusions, you can look at a full, detailed summary of what the new agreement covers here.

As AMPTP had called this their “last, best and final offer,” actor Kevin E. West had stated that the deal is “not perfect” but had also added that “nothing is.” Actor and SAG-AFTRA executive vice president Ben Whitehair called the agreement a “massive win.” AMPTP had said that this agreement “represents a new paradigm,” and that “it gives SAG-AFTRA the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union.” With this negotiation, one can conclude that the deal signifies the protection and support of actors within the professional field so that the industry can continue to flourish within healthy, good spaces. 

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