Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace. Officially retired from the American Friends Service Committee since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements. You can reach him at arnie.alpert@indepthnh.org. Arnie Alpert
The “Red Cup Rebellion” strike of Starbucks workers reached New Hampshire Thursday, when baristas set up picket lines at stores in Epping, Stratham, and Seabrook. The Stratham store, normally open until 9:00 pm, was closed by 12:30 pm.
“We’re not staffed properly, so we’re overworked, and we don’t get paid enough for the amount of work that we do,” said Scott Lasalette, who was on the picket line outside the Epping store.
Cailyn Heath, a shift supervisor at the Stratham Starbucks, said the strike will go on “as long as it takes.”
“We want better wages. We want better working conditions. We want people to be able to afford rent,” she said, “to be paid enough that they can afford an apartment, that they don’t have to be choosing between groceries and meds.”
Nationwide, the strike launched on November 13, with walkouts at 65 stores in more than 40 cities. Like the UAW’s 2023 Stand Up Strike, Starbucks Workers United is adding more stores each week. Today, the union said, baristas went on strike at 26 additional stores including the three in New Hampshire, bringing the total to more than 145.
The company says “99% of our 17,000 U.S. locations remain open.”
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The union says its strike is focused on hundreds of unresolved unfair labor practice charges, “more labor law violations than any employer in modern history.” The charges include firings of union members and a failure to negotiate over policies such as a controversial dress code.
The union is getting support from the Teamsters Union, whose members have a practice of refusing to cross picket lines. April Richer, a Dover Teamster who was on the picket lines in Epping and Stratham today, said a Teamster delivery driver turned back from the Stratham store this morning.
Lasallette said the Epping store had less than half its normal staffing today due to the strike. “The store can’t operate with those numbers,” he said.
By early afternoon, a sign taped to the door of the Stratham Starbucks said, “We have temporarily closed our in-store café, but our drive-through remains open.” When I arrived at about 1 pm, the café was dark and the drive-through window appeared to be unstaffed. “Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience,” the sign said.
According to a company statement, “Starbucks offers the best job in retail, with pay and benefits averaging $30 per hour for hourly partners.” Lasallette said that as a full-time worker, he has access to benefits, but that many baristas, who work less than 20 hours a week, are out of luck. “The benefits are nearly impossible to get with the current way that the stores are run,” he said.
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According to the company’s own figures, its CEO last year made 6666 times as much as the median worker, a part-time barista earning $14,674 a year.
The union continues to ask potential customers to stay away from all Starbucks stores and products while the strike is on. A union email, sent today, said, “On December 15, we’re asking allies across the country to show up at non-union Starbucks stores to ask customers to stop buying Starbucks. It only takes 1 to 3 people to make a real impact. And if we work together, we can talk to thousands upon thousands of customers at hundreds of stores all on the same day.”
According to the union, more than 200,000 people have signed their “No Contract, No Coffee” pledge. The union has also drawn support from a wide range of organizations, including major unions, Peace Action, the Sunrise Movement, and the Democratic Socialists of America, which is organizing “strike kitchens” in support of union members.
The union and the company each accuse the other of walking away from the bargaining table. “Right now, it’s their move,” Heath said.
Picketing Friday morning will focus on the Starbucks store at Seabrook Crossing. The New Hampshire AFL-CIO emailed an alert to its members encouraging them to be there.
A staple of many New Hampshire town fairs, the pig scramble may soon look a little different.
A bill signed into law by Gov. Kelly Ayotte last week requires the commissioner of the state Department of Agriculture to create best practices for any event in which people compete to capture a pig. Those guidelines will be published before the 2027 fair season, so they won’t be in place for any fairs with pig scrambles this year, such as the upcoming Deerfield Fair in the fall.
Generally, a pig scramble involves people of the same age competing to capture pigs that have been let loose in a large pen. Contestants have to catch the pig in a drawstring bag, and the first one to do so can take the pig home.
Rep. Cathryn Harvey, a Democrat from Spofford, is the prime sponsor of the bill. She said each fair has different rules for their pig scrambles, meaning some can be more humane than others. One aspect of the events she hopes will change is the bags pigs are captured in.
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“They’re putting an animal in a plastic bag on a hot summer day,” Harvey said. “It isn’t a great idea.”
Although some fairs already use more breathable bags out of burlap, Joan O’Brien, president of the New Hampshire Animal Rights League, said she’s also seen pigs being kept in plastic bags for long periods of time after the event. Not only would a burlap bag improve the pig’s ability to breathe in the heat, she said, but she also wants fairs to require participants to bring an animal carrier for the trip home. Her organization was ultimately in favor of the legislation.
“If you don’t have a carrier, you should not be allowed to leave your pig lying in a bag,” O’Brien said, adding that some fairs already ask contestants to bring carriers. “You should be taking them right home.”
The Deerfield Fair has implemented another rule that O’Brien and Harvey hope becomes part of statewide best practices — having parents supervise their child in the pen. O’Brien once witnessed a child hang a pig upside down by its legs and then lower it headfirst into the bag.
“In the heat of the moment, the kids get excited and they just do whatever it takes to get the pig in the bag,” O’Brien said. She said parents should work with the event referee to make sure their kid is handling the pig humanely.
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Harvey’s bill originally called for pig scrambles to be banned around the state, but both she and O’Brien feel that universal guidelines for fairs would still make the experience better for the animals. Even seemingly small things, Harvey said, like giving the pigs water after the scramble, would be an improvement to the current situation for them.
“I think that the bill will embolden people to speak up at these events,” O’Brien said. “If they think a pig is being mistreated, they’ll be able to say to themselves, ‘I know that there’s supposed to be a rule, so I’m going to say something.’ So I think that would be a good outcome.”
The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services collected samples of the unknown substance found in Sunapee Harbor and will be testing them tomorrow. Authorities say the spill was contained and prevented from spreading further.
HAMPSTEAD, N.H. (WHDH) – Authorities have launched an investigation after responding to a reported untimely death in Hampstead, New Hampshire, officials said.
The Attorney General’s Office is investigating the untimely death of a woman at a home in Hampstead, Attorney General John M. Formella announced.
While the investigation is just beginning, there is no known threat to the general public at this time.
The exact circumstances surrounding this incident remain under active investigation.
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This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.
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