After months of employees striking across the country, Starbucks is starting to negotiate and work with picketing union members. At the New York City Roastery, where employees have been striking for 46 days due to hygiene and safety concerns after a bedbug infestation, baristas finally returned to work on Monday following cleaning and pest inspection agreements with Starbucks corporate.
Starbucks workers at the flagship Roastery in New York City walked out on Oct. 25, the same day that Starbucks announced the opening of a new three-story Reserve store inside the Empire State Building. The workers were protesting the corporation’s lack of response to “urgent health and safety conditions” at the store, including allegations of bedbugs and black mold. The store had voted to unionize in April of this year, following a National Labor Relations Board election.
Since walking out, SBWorkers United said that they have been working with the health department and Starbucks lawyers and health and safety experts to get the issues fixed. The latest updates include:
- The Department of Agriculture has demanded that the ice machines be regularly cleaned/serviced on a weekly schedule. This policy has been replicated in roasteries throughout the United States
- A wall was torn down and replaced where black mold was found by an independent health inspector
- After dozens of pest inspection reports and a “partner-won” god-led inspection of the facilities, bedbugs have still been found on premises as recently as Nov. 30th.
- Starbucks is paying for professional cleaning services for employees’ homes and work belongings, upon request
- Starbucks has said that training and communication issues on the topics of cleaning and hygiene will be addressed, according to SBWorkers United
“Having mold in our ice or potentially spreading bed bugs is something that shouldn’t be tolerated for the sake of the bottom line,” Madalyn S., a worker at the Roastery told SBWorkers United. “For a company that calls ‘family meetings’ and insists on calling everyone ‘partners’ instead of coworkers or employees, I think all of us feel like our voices aren’t heard or taken seriously.”
SBWorkers United has also set a first date for union contract negotiations with Starbucks, on Tues. Dec. 13, almost one year to the day after the first Starbucks store voted to unionize in Buffalo, N.Y. Since then, about 2% of Starbucks workers have unionized across the country.
Contact Joanna at [email protected]