Unionized Starbucks baristas have voted overwhelmingly to authorize their leaders to call a strike as soon as next week if the coffee giant doesn’t make new proposals or they don’t see real progress in contract talks.

The authorization was approved by 92% of those who voted, Starbucks Workers United said Wednesday morning.

Michelle Eisen, a spokesperson for the union and a former Starbucks worker of 15 years, said the vote follows six months of Starbucks failing to offer new proposals to address workers’ staffing concerns.

The union said baristas were prepared to strike if a contract is not finalized by Nov. 13.

“Union baristas mean business and are ready to do whatever it takes to win a fair contract,” Eisen said in a statement. “If Starbucks keeps stonewalling, they should expect to see their business grind to a halt. The ball is in Starbucks’ court.”

Starbucks did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Starbucks Workers United represents 12,000 workers at some 650 coffee shops. Their membership represents about 5% of Starbucks’ U.S. workforce, according to the company.

The strike authorization vote, just before the critical holiday season, comes as the coffee giant has contended with flat or declining sales in some U.S. stores this year.

Hopes that the two sides would be able to hammer out a deal had been high since early last year, when Starbucks — which had previously been accused by federal regulators of unlawfully firing workers — pledged publicly to work with the union.

But contract talks broke down in December. In February, federal mediators were brought in to resolve the dispute, but little progress was made.

In April, the union voted to reject the coffee chain’s latest proposal that guaranteed annual raises would not fall below 2%.

Since then, the union has regularly asked the company to return to the bargaining table, but has been met with silence for months, Eisen has said.

Unionized workers have also taken issue with recent store closures that have affected dozens of California stores, and new policies such as the updated uniform and requirements for handwritten messages on coffee cups that they say create bigger workloads. They say these policies have been implemented without proper bargaining, and are among the reasons workers are gearing up for a strike.

The company has maintained that the union is to blame for stalled contract talks by walking away from negotiations last winter.

Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson said last month that “allegations by Workers United have all previously been debunked and are without merit.”

“Our commitment to bargaining with Workers United and reaching agreements has not changed,” Anderson said.

Duane Roberts made millions off a food he was initially wholly ignorant of: the humble burrito.

It was the 1950s, and his family owned a small meat wholesaler called the Butcher Boy that sold patties to local restaurants, including one of the first operating McDonald’s, a location in San Bernardino.

As the fast-food chain and other burger joints grew in popularity, the family brainstormed other products they could manufacture, Roberts recalled in a 2007 interview with the Orange County Register.

A butcher who worked at the company, whom Roberts described as having Hispanic heritage, made a suggestion: “Why don’t you make a burrito?”

“I loved Mexican food, but I had no idea what a burrito was,” Roberts told the Register, saying he was more familiar with enchiladas and tacos.

But the entrepreneurial Roberts went on to turn that seed of an idea into a bean and beef burrito that could be sold frozen and then deep-fried.

Roberts, who would parlay his business success into a prominent role in Inland Empire Republican politics and attain local fame as owner of the historic Mission Inn, died Saturday, according to his family. He was 88.

The story goes that the Riverside businessman experimented in the kitchen for two days straight to get the burrito right. Its sales helped expand the family business from one plant with 60 workers to six plants with 1,400 workers.

Roberts made millions off the product when he sold the company to Central Soya Inc. in 1980. At the time, the company was generating $80 million in annual sales and producing 1 million burritos each day.

His wife, Kelly J. Roberts, said in a statement that her husband was a “visionary entrepreneur, devoted husband, and a man whose heart and generosity forever shaped [their] family and community.” She said he died peacefully in his sleep.

She described Roberts as a “proud American” who served in the United States military and was a “staunch supporter” of the Republican Party.

“[H]e believed passionately in the principles of hard work, perseverance and opportunity, values that guided both his business ventures and his life,” she said.

Roberts hosted a reelection fundraiser for then-President George W. Bush in 2003, and his wife was President Trump’s pick for ambassador to Slovenia during Trump’s first term — although she later pulled herself out of the running, Politico reported.

The businessman, who grew up in Riverside, is also known for saving the historic Mission Inn from the brink of demolition.

The hotel — which hosted both the marriage of the Nixons and the honeymoon of the Reagans — closed for a major overhaul in 1985, but the renovation dragged on, and then the hotel market collapsed. Roberts swept in offering $15.6 million, a steal when compared with the $55 million spent on the renovation, financed by Chemical Bank.

The bank acquiesced, however, fearing more losses. Roberts reopened the Mission Inn in 1992.

“How the Mission Inn was saved is the happy tale of a city’s heart restarted,” former Times reporter Daniel Akst wrote after its reopening. “But it’s also an object lesson in what you can do if you’re solvent — and clever — during the worst recession in Southern California since the 1930s.”

Roberts had a sentimental attachment to the hotel, as his meat company had sometimes entertained clients there. His mother also loved the ornate architecture.

“I like beautiful old things. The Mission Inn is the fabric that binds the community together. It’s a heart-welling thing to own. Some people have sports teams, I have my Mission Inn,” he told the Register in 2007.

Roberts and his wife have been longtime residents of Laguna Beach, but earlier this year they purchased a $48.5-million Palm Beach estate, the latest example of wealthy Californians and Trump fans flocking to Florida.

He is survived by his wife and his stepchildren Doug and Casey.

Jon Stewart’s biting satire may have made his new bosses squirm, but they went ahead and extended the comedian’s run on Comedy Central through December 2026.

The channel’s parent company, Paramount, announced Monday that Stewart will continue to host “The Daily Show” on Monday nights and serve as an executive producer through the end of next year.

Members of the show’s news team will continue to share Tuesday-through-Thursday hosting duties. Terms of the contract were not disclosed.

“Jon Stewart continues to elevate the genre he created. His return is an ongoing commitment to the incisive comedy and sharp commentary that define The Daily Show,” Ari Pearce, Comedy Central’s manager, said in a prepared statement. “We’re proud to support Jon and the extraordinary news team.”

Stewart’s contract was re-upped nearly four months after Paramount-owned sister network CBS notified Stephen Colbert, who rose to fame on “The Daily Show,” that it was dumping his late night show at the end of the season. The cancellation was revealed days after Colbert lambasted a $16-million settlement Paramount agreed to pay President Trump to end a lawsuit over edits to “60 Minutes.” Colbert called the arrangement “a big fat bribe.”

Paramount settled the Trump suit to win approval from the Trump administration of its sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media and RedBird Capital Partners. CBS has said the reason for Colbert’s cancellation was financial, not political, although many people have expressed doubts.

Ellison took ownership of Paramount in August. Stewart has joked that he, too, might be tossed as the company tries to reposition itself to the political center.

Since taking over the media firm that also includes MTV, BET, Nickelodeon and Hollywood-based Paramount Pictures movie studio, the company has made big bets, including agreeing to pay $7.7 billion for rights to UFC fights and $1.25 billion over five years to Matt Stone and Trey Parker to continue creating their “South Park” cartoon for Comedy Central and the Paramount+ streaming service. Ellison and his team also lured Matt and Ross Duffer, the duo behind “Stranger Things,” from Netflix and paid $150 million to buy the Free Press and bring its co-founder, Bari Weiss, to the company as CBS News editor in chief.

Paramount also signed a 10-year lease on a film and television production facility under construction in New Jersey.

Last week, the company began a deep round of layoffs, cutting 1,000 employees with plans to terminate another 1,000 in the coming weeks, in an effort to trim its workforce by 10%. About 100 people from CBS News were among the layoffs.

After a nine-year absence, Stewart returned as a host in February 2024. He had helmed the show for 16 years before taking a break in 2015. His current contract was expiring.

The show was hosted by Trevor Noah until 2022, when he stepped down. That prompted a rotation of guest hosts, including Kal Penn, Charlamagne tha God, Sarah Silverman and Michelle Wolf.

Last month, during a conversation with the New Yorker at a cultural festival, Stewart was asked whether he might stick around longer. “We’re working on staying,” Stewart told the New Yorker’s David Remnick.

The rotation of “The Daily Show” hosts also will include Ronny Chieng, Josh Johnson, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta and Desi Lydic with Troy Iwata and Grace Kuhlenschmidt.