A Starbucks closed abruptly, and its workers say it was retaliation

After workers at a Starbucks store in Ithaca, New York, went on strike last April, a communications specialist with the public relations firm Edelman emailed a “real-time alert” to corporate officials at Starbucks.

“mark one article from The Ithacan that talks about the Starbucks strike at Cornell University,” the specialist wrote. “Partners went on strike due to repeated grease trap spills causing an unsafe environment and lack of action from management.”

The story renewed discussion among Starbucks management over what to do with the store. A regional director recommended closure because “the space does not meet the needs of our partners or the brand,” but also noted that they were exploring the possibility of a renovation.

Starbucks ended up closing the store permanently two months later, prompting workers and federal labor authorities to accuse the company of retaliation. workers recently voted 19-1 in favor of joining Workers United, making it one of 300 corporate-owned Starbucks stores across the country that have organized since the end of 2021.

The emails, which Starbucks revealed in a recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) trial, shed light on thinking among Starbucks top brass ahead of the shutdown. The store was in a prime location with great sales potential, but suffered from serious maintenance issues, including an overflowing grease trap.

In June, Denise Nelsen, senior vice president of US operations, emailed Rossann Williams, then Starbucks’ head of North American business, about the debate over whether to permanently close the store or renovate it.

“We need to resolve these condition issues because we continue to receive media about the condition of the store there as well,” Nelsen wrote.

Kolya Vitek, a barista who worked at the College Avenue location, argued that the unwanted attention from the strike led Starbucks to close the store for good.

“It was retaliation for the strike that we did because we were forced to work in unsafe conditions,” said Vitek, who now works at a different Starbucks store in Ithaca. “They didn’t care (before). They suddenly cared now that we’re on the national news.”

Starbucks insists it closed the coffee shop for legitimate business reasons, saying its concerns with the store go back a year. The company also denied that negative press played any role in the call.

“The media attention did not influence our decision to close the store,” Andrew Trull, a company spokesman, told HuffPost.

It would be illegal for a company to close an individual workplace because of union activity there. The NLRB’s general counsel found merit in the union’s claims in Ithaca and filed a complaint. general complaint against the company last November.

According to the union, Starbucks informed workers on June 3, 2022 that the College Avenue store would close permanently. But emails from Starbucks suggest the company was still undecided at the time about what it should do with the coffee, in part because the location was so strong.

A memo on the store’s status said it had the “strongest commercial real estate position in this area” and that “any relocation would be inferior.” Members of the operations team had recommended a permanent closure, while the “real estate recommendation” for the store was to “shut down, reinvest, and reopen.”

Several days after workers were told the store would be closing for good, company officials were still discussing whether to rehabilitate and reopen it.

“It has gone dark, this is our last effort to get the (owner) to resolve these issues,” Nelsen wrote to Williams.

Noting the media attention on the store, Nelsen added: “If we can’t get him to respond to this message and cooperate, we’ll have to discuss the permanent closure.”

Michael Dolce, a lawyer for the union, said the emails show Starbucks was not being honest with the store workers. He noted that on the same day that Nelsen and Williams were discussing the store’s possibilities, Starbucks’ lawyer sent workers a list of the reasons they were closing permanently, including the problematic grease trap.

“At the bargaining table, they told the union that they would close the store permanently,” Dolce said. “The plan was No permanently close the store; It was to survey options.”

Dolce argued that the negative publicity caused by the strike led Starbucks to rush and close the store even while it was still evaluating what to do.

Another email from Starbucks says the original closure plan was to keep the cafe open until June, but the operations team moved the closing date up nearly three weeks.

Starbucks says it was still considering the closure “permanent” because it couldn’t have restored the cafe in a matter of weeks. Instead, he would have taken a year or two at a cost of $700,000.

Pressed on why the company told workers the store would close permanently when a renovation was still on the table, Nelsen said during the labor board trial that the “depth of the problems” at the store made the schedule for reopening was uncertain.

“Our schedule for a new one, like for the opening of a new store, is one year,” he said. “So we’re literally talking about something that takes so long. Like yes, this would be treated as a permanent closure.”

Williams played a leading role in the company’s effort to contain the union campaign. before leaving Starbucks last June. Based in Seattle, the executive visited and worked in stores in the Buffalo area, where the campaign began, when workers considered forming unions, a presence some workers found intimidating. The emails suggest that Williams received detailed updates on the union’s progress.

In a June 2022 email, a regional operations director sent Williams a “Buffalo executive summary” that called Ithaca a “hot spot” for union activity that “continues to have a presence from Buffalo union organizers.” .

He also gave Williams a summary of the upcoming union elections. She said the company planned to challenge the results of a recent vote at the store because four workers apparently did not receive ballots. The union had won that vote 7-4.

“It is believed that these four partners are not votes,” he wrote. (The challenge ultimately failed.)

The College Avenue store is one of 25 that the union says Starbucks closed permanently or temporarily to disrupt the union campaign. Union members argue that Starbucks has two goals with the closures: to break up and disperse a core of union support, perhaps prompting resignations from baristas who couldn’t or wouldn’t work in a different location, and to make workers around the world think twice before trying it. organize.

Starbucks maintains that it has not closed any stores in retaliation for union activity. But an administrative law judge has already ruled that Starbucks illegally closed a mall kiosk that he had unionized, considering the company’s reasons for the closure “clearly pretextual.” The NLRB’s general counsel has yet to announce whether the union’s allegations regarding nearly two dozen other closures have merit.

After Starbucks announced the closure of the Ithaca store, workers began what is known as an “effects bargain” with the company to discuss their rights during the closure. Workers were offered positions at other stores. Vitek said they pushed for a severance package for workers who would not fill other positions, but the company strongly opposed it.

Evan Sunshine, an Ithaca barista who led the way in that negotiation, said he didn’t expect Starbucks to close the store permanently. He believed that the grease trap was a serious problem and that the company could shut down the store for a while to fix it, but ultimately the workers would have to return to the same store.

Sunshine said they crowdfunded money to help cover the salaries of workers affected by the shutdown.

“We don’t achieve our goals every week,” he said.

In the end, Sunshine said, the closing of the College Avenue store had a dramatic effect on the workforce and the organizing drive in the city. When the election was held in April 2022, there were 27 workers in the store. Starbucks said 14 workers accepted positions at other stores after the shutdown, while the rest declined. Since then, the vast majority have moved on from the company.

“Two of the 27 still work at Starbucks,” Sunshine said, referring to himself and Vitek.