PHILADELPHIA (AP) — More than 1,000 unionized Starbucks workers went on strike at 65 U.S. stores Thursday to protest a lack of progress in labor negotiations with the company.

The strike was intended to disrupt Starbucks’ Red Cup Day, which is typically one of the company’s busiest days of the year. Since 2018, Starbucks has given out free, reusable cups on that day to customers who buy a holiday drink. Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing baristas, said Thursday morning that the strike had already closed some stores and was expected to force more to close later in the day.

Starbucks Workers United said stores in 45 cities would be impacted, including New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Diego, St. Louis, Dallas, Columbus, Ohio, and Starbucks’ home city of Seattle. There is no date set for the strike to end, and more stores are prepared to join if Starbucks doesn’t reach a contract agreement with the union, organizers said.

Starbucks emphasized that the vast majority of its U.S. stores would be open and operating as usual Thursday. The coffee giant has 10,000 company-owned stores in the U.S., as well as 7,000 licensed locations in places like grocery stores and airports.

As of noon Thursday on the East Coast, Starbucks said it was on track to meet or exceed its sales expectations for the day at its company-owned stores.

“The day is off to an incredible start,” the company said in a statement.

Around 550 company-owned U.S. Starbucks stores are currently unionized. More have voted to unionize, but Starbucks closed 59 unionized stores in September as part of a larger reorganization campaign.

Here’s what’s behind the strike.

A stalled contract agreement

Striking workers say they’re protesting because Starbucks has yet to reach a contract agreement with the union. Starbucks workers first voted to unionize at a store in Buffalo in 2021. In December 2023, Starbucks vowed to finalize an agreement by the end of 2024. But in August of last year, the company ousted Laxman Narasimhan, the CEO who made that promise. The union said progress has stalled under Brian Niccol, the company’s current chairman and CEO. The two sides haven’t been at the bargaining table since April.

Workers want higher pay, better hours

Workers say they’re seeking better hours and improved staffing in stores, where they say long customer wait times are routine. They also want higher pay, pointing out that executives like Niccol are making millions and the company spent $81 million in June on a conference in Las Vegas for 14,000 store managers and regional leaders.

Dochi Spoltore, a barista from Pittsburgh, said in a union conference call Thursday that it’s hard for workers to be assigned more than 19 hours per week, which leaves them short of the 20 hours they would need to be eligible for Starbucks’ benefits. Spoltore said she makes $16 per hour.

“I want Starbucks to succeed. My livelihood depends on it,” Spoltore said. “We’re proud of our work, but we’re tired of being treated like we’re disposable.”

The union also wants the company to resolve hundreds of unfair labor practice charges filed by workers, who say the company has fired baristas in retaliation for unionizing and has failed to bargain over changes in policy that workers must enforce, like its decision earlier this year to limit restroom use to paying customers.

Starbucks stands by its wages and benefits

Starbucks says it offers the best wage and benefit package in retail, worth an average of $30 per hour. Among the company’s benefits are up to 18 weeks of paid family leave and 100% tuition coverage for a four-year college degree. In a letter to employees last week, Starbucks’ Chief Partner Officer Sara Kelly said the union walked away from the bargaining table in the spring.

Kelly said some of the union’s proposals would significantly alter Starbucks’ operations, such as giving workers the ability to shut down mobile ordering if a store has more than five orders in the queue.

Kelly said Starbucks remained ready to talk and “believes we can move quickly to a reasonable deal.” Kelly also said surveys showed that most employees like working for the company, and its barista turnover rates are half the industry average.

Limited locations with high visibility

Unionized workers have gone on strike at Starbucks before. In 2022 and 2023, workers walked off the job on Red Cup Day. Last year, a five-day strike ahead of Christmas closed 59 U.S. stores. Each time, Starbucks said the disruption to its operations was minimal. Starbucks Workers United said the new strike is open-ended and could spread to many more unionized locations.

The number of non-union Starbucks locations dwarfs the number of unionized ones. But Todd Vachon, a union expert at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said any strike could be highly visible and educate the public on baristas’ concerns.

Unlike manufacturers, Vachon said, retail industries depend on the connection between their employees and their customers. That makes shaming a potentially powerful weapon in the union’s arsenal, he said.

Improving sales

Starbucks’ same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, rose 1% in the July-September period. It was the first time in nearly two years that the company had posted an increase. In his first year at the company, Niccol set new hospitality standards, redesigned stores to be cozier and more welcoming, and adjusted staffing levels to better handle peak hours.

Starbucks also is trying to prioritize in-store orders over mobile ones. Last week, the company’s holiday drink rollout in the U.S. was so successful that it almost immediately sold out of its glass Bearista cup. Starbucks said demand for the cup exceeded its expectations, but it wouldn’t say if the Bearista will return before the holidays are over.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government is reopening, but there’s still uncertainty about when one of the most far-reaching impacts of the closure will be resolved and all 42 million Americans who receive SNAP food aid will have access to their full November benefits.

President Donald Trump signed the reopening measure Wednesday.

One provision calls for restarting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but it doesn’t resolve when the benefits will be loaded onto the debit cards beneficiaries use to buy groceries.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the program, said in an email Wednesday that funds could be available “upon the government reopening, within 24 hours for most states.” The department didn’t immediately answer questions about where it might take longer — or whether the 24-hour timeline applies to when money would be available to states or loaded onto debit cards used by beneficiaries.

There has been a series of court battles over the fate of the largest government food program, which serves about 1 in 8 Americans.

Here are things to know about how it could go.

When SNAP funds become available could vary by state

Seesawing court rulings and messages from the USDA have meant that beneficiaries in some states already have received their full monthly allocations while in others they have received nothing. Some states have issued partial payments.

States say it’s faster to provide full benefits than it is to do the calculations and computer programming required for partial amounts.

At least 19 states plus the District of Columbia issued full benefits to at least some recipients last week, an Associated Press tally found. Many of them managed to do it in a day or so, in the narrow window between the Nov. 6 court ruling that required the federal government to make full payments and one Nov. 7 by the U.S. Supreme Court that stopped it.

Jessica Garon, a spokesperson for the American Public Human Services Association, said she anticipates most states will be able to issue full benefits within three days after they’re given the go-ahead, but that it might take a week for others.

Experts say the states that have sent no November benefits already, such as South Carolina and West Virginia, will likely be the quickest.

But there’s a complication. Sixteen states have loaded the EBT cards used in SNAP with partial benefits. Carolyn Vega, a policy analyst with the advocacy group Share Our Strength said some of those states might run into technical hurdles to issue the remaining amount.

Delays in benefits can be a problem for recipients

Even if there’s some clarity that benefits are on the way, exactly when they arrive will matter to millions of Americans.

About 42 million lower-income Americans receive SNAP benefits, on average about $190 monthly per person. Many say the benefits don’t and aren’t intended to cover the full cost of groceries in a regular month, even with careful budgeting.

It’s worse when benefits are delayed.

Doretha Washington, 41, of St. Louis, and her husband have themselves and six children to feed and not enough money to cover that cost. Her husband works servicing heating and cooling systems, but the family still needs SNAP to get by. They had received nothing in November, although Missouri said Tuesday that partial benefits would be issued.

“Now it’s making things difficult because we can’t pay our bills in full and keep food in here,” Washington said this week. “I’m down to three days of food and trying to figure out what to do.”

She has been rationing what they have.

Other people have turned to food charities but are sometimes finding long lines and low supplies.

Cutting off funds left state governments scrambling

The USDA told states Oct. 24 that it would not fund the program for November if the shutdown continued. That left states scrambling. Most Democratic-led states sued to have the funding restored.

Some Democratic and Republican-led states launched efforts to pay for SNAP benefits using state money, boost food banks and deploy the National Guard to help with food distribution. Another group of states used their money allotted for SNAP benefits only after a judge ordered the Trump administration to cover the full cost for the month.

The legislation to reopen the government passed by the Senate on Monday calls for states to be reimbursed for spending their funds to run programs usually paid for by the federal government.

It’s not immediately clear, though, which situations might qualify in the case of SNAP.

In the meantime, the USDA told states Tuesday that it would reimburse them for paying out partial SNAP benefits under a system where recipients get up to 65% of their regular allocations — and even states that paid the full amount can receive partial reimbursements. It also said it would not reduce the amount on cards for recipients in states that paid full amounts.

Democratic-led states that sued for benefits to be made available said in a filing Wednesday that the late-arriving information “illustrates the chaos and confusion occasioned by USDA’s multiple, conflicting guidance documents.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The longest government shutdown in history could conclude as soon as Wednesday, Day 43, with almost no one happy with the final result.

Democrats didn’t get the heath insurance provisions they demanded added to the spending deal. And Republicans, who control the levers of power in Washington, didn’t escape blame, according to polls and some state and local elections that went poorly for them.

The fallout of the shutdown landed on millions of Americans, including federal workers who went without paychecks and airline passengers who had their trips delayed or canceled. An interruption in nutrition assistance programs contributed to long lines at food banks and added emotional distress going into the holiday season.

The agreement includes bipartisan bills worked out by the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund parts of government — food aid, veterans programs and the legislative branch, among other things. All other funding would be extended until the end of January, giving lawmakers more than two months to finish additional spending bills.

Here’s a look at how the shutdown started and is likely to end:

What led to the shutdown

Democrats made several demands to win their support for a short-term funding bill, but the central one was an extension of an enhanced tax credit that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

The tax credit was boosted during the COVID-19 pandemic response, again through President Joe Biden’s big energy and health care bill, and it’s set to expire at the end of December. Without it, premiums on average will more than double for millions of Americans. More than 2 million people would lose health insurance coverage altogether next year, the Congressional Budget Office projected.

“Never have American families faced a situation where their health care costs are set to double — double in the blink of an eye,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

While Democrats called for negotiations on the matter, Republicans said a funding bill would need to be passed first.

“Republicans are ready to sit down with Democrats just as soon as they stop holding the government hostage to their partisan demands,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said.

Thune eventually promised Democrats a December vote on the tax credit extension to help resolve the standoff, but many Democrats demanded a guaranteed fix, not just a vote that is likely to fail.

Thune’s position was much the same as the one Schumer took back in October 2013, when Republicans unsuccessfully sought to roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act in exchange for funding the government. “Open up all of the government, and then we can have a fruitful discussion,” Schumer said then.

Democratic leaders under pressure

The first year of President Donald Trump’s second term has seen more than 200,000 federal workers leave their job through firings, forced relocations or the Republican administration’s deferred resignation program, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Whole agencies that don’t align with the administration’s priorities have been dismantled. And billions of dollars previously approved by Congress have been frozen or canceled.

Democrats have had to rely on the courts to block some of Trump’s efforts, but they have been unable to do it through legislation. They were also powerless to stop Trump’s big tax cut and immigration crackdown bill that Republicans helped pay for by cutting future spending on safety net programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.

The Democrats’ struggles to blunt the Trump administration’s priorities has prompted calls for the party’s congressional leadership to take a more forceful response.

Schumer experienced that firsthand after announcing in March that he would support moving ahead with a funding bill for the 2025 budget year. There was a protest at his office, calls from progressives that he be primaried in 2028 and suggestions that the Democratic Party would soon be looking for new leaders.

This time around, Schumer demanded that Republicans negotiate with Democrats to get their votes on a spending bill. The Senate rules, he noted, requires bipartisan support to meet the 60-vote threshold necessary to advance a spending bill.

But those negotiations did not occur, at least not with Schumer. Republicans instead worked with a small group of eight Democrats to tee up a short-term bill to fund the government generally at current levels and accused Schumer of catering to the party’s left flank when he refused to go along.

“The Senate Democrats are afraid that the radicals in their party will say that they caved,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said at one of his many daily press conferences.

The blame game

The political stakes in the shutdown are huge, which is why leaders in both parties have held nearly daily press briefings to shape public opinion.

Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say Trump and Republicans in Congress have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats in Congress, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

At least three-quarters of Americans believe each deserves at least a “moderate” share of blame, underscoring that no one was successfully evading responsibility.

Both parties looked to the Nov. 4 elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere for signs of how the shutdown was influencing public opinion. Democrats took comfort in their overwhelming successes. Trump called it a “big factor, negative” for Republicans. But it did not change the GOP’s stance on negotiating. Instead, Trump ramped up calls for Republicans to end the filibuster in the Senate, which would pretty much eliminate the need for the majority party to ever negotiate with the minority.

Damage of the shutdown

The Congressional Budget Office says that the negative impact on the economy will be mostly recovered once the shutdown ends, but not entirely. It estimated the permanent economic loss at about $11 billion for a six-week shutdown.

Beyond the numbers, though, the shutdown created a cascade of troubles for many Americans. Federal workers missed paychecks, causing financial and emotional stress. Travelers had their flights delayed and at times canceled. People who rely on safety net programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program saw their benefits stopped, and Americans throughout the country lined up for meals at food banks.

“This dysfunction is damaging enough to our constituents and economy here at home, but it also sends a dangerous message to the watching world,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan. “It demonstrates to our allies that we are an unreliable partner, and it signals to our adversaries that we can’t work together to meet even the most fundamental responsibilities of Congress.”