Baristas rally at Starbucks HQ to protest store closures
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Starbucks employees and allies rallied at outside the company's headquarters on Monday. Photo: Melissa Santos/Axios
Starbucks workers and allies rallied outside the company's headquarters on Monday, protesting abrupt store closures they say reflect the company's disregard for its hometown employees.
Why it matters: The closures — which included two of Seattle's most recognizable Starbucks locations — are the latest flashpoint in a nationwide labor battle between the coffee giant and its unionized baristas.
Catch up quick: Starbucks recently shuttered the Capitol Hill Reserve Roastery and SoDo Reserve locations overnight.
- Some workers said they learned of the closures from social media or a brief pre-recorded message, according to Starbucks Workers United.
- The union says the company is not reassigning jobless workers to nearby stores as in the past.
- "It's crazy to wake up and learn from social media that you lost your job before your company tells you," Trent Lytle-Hogue, a former Roastery barista, said in a statement.
By the numbers: Starbucks said last month it would close stores and lay off 900 corporate employees in a $1 billion restructuring plan.
The big picture: Monday's rally follows a coordinated wave of pickets at Starbucks stores in more than 35 cities as union members push for "a fair contract" and prepare to strike, per the union.
The other side: Starbucks says store closures are part of a larger plan to refocus resources "closest to the customer" under its Back to Starbucks strategy.
- In a Sept. 25 memo to employees, CEO Brian Niccol said some coffeehouses "could not deliver the physical environment our customers and partners expect" and would be closed, while more than 1,000 others will be "uplifted" over the next year.
- A company spokesperson who declined to be named told Axios that union status was not a factor in closure decisions and that Starbucks had offered transfers to employees who lost their jobs "wherever possible."
- The company has held "more than 30 bargaining sessions" with Workers United and remains ready to return to the table, the spokesperson said.
What's next: The union, which represents more than 12,000 baristas at 650 stores, said it will keep pressing for contract negotiations nationwide.