Starbucks Workers Serve Dunkin’ Donuts at Strike at Flagship NYC Store
October 26, 2022Workers at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Manhattan, the company’s New York flagship location, went on strike outside the front entrance on Wednesday protesting allegedly unsanitary working conditions.
The strike began at 11 a.m. and grew to a picket line of over 70 people—Starbucks workers, organizers with Workers United, and even people off the street joined in some of the chants. Cries of “What’s disgusting? Union-busting!” and “Come get your moldy ice!” filled the sidewalk as two strike organizers served Dunkin Donuts coffee and pastries at a table off to the side. Congressman Jerry Nadler, the representative for the Roastery’s district, joined the picket line and shook hands with some of the organizers.
Workers said that over the past few days there had been two bed bug sightings in their break room. After spotting one on Sunday, management at the store called in an inspector early this week, who found no infestation. But workers aren't satisfied, they said.
“They called in a specialist, the specialist found no nest, but on Monday there was another bed bug found in our manager’s office,” said Athena Kosmopoulos, one of the workers on strike. “Once you find one, honestly, it’s already there. It’s a huge problem. It’s a really big space—you can’t tell me that they’re not nesting.”
Kosmopoulous said that workers had also been dealing with black mold in the ice machines used to serve drinks to customers. On Wednesday, too, they said that black mold had been discovered leaking in the back-of-house retail room, where the store keeps its merchandise.
“It’s unsafe to breathe in, it’s not safe for us,” they said. “The mold gets in our ice. We try our best to pick it out when we serve to customers. We’ve had employees clean out the ice machine and get sick from it.”
A Starbucks spokesperson wrote in an email to Motherboard confirmed that a pest control provider had visited the store on Monday and deemed it safe to open despite the alleged bed bug sighting. They also said that the ice machines are regularly cleaned and that one machine was replaced during a recent inspection, although due to a wiring issue and not mold.
“At all of our facilities every ice machine undergoes thorough cleaning at routine intervals to ensure every beverage we serve is crafted to the highest standards,” they wrote. “Last week during routine maintenance and cleaning of the ice machines at the Roastery store management discovered a wiring issue with one machine and had the unit replaced within 48 hours.” They did not address any concerns of black mold.
Starbucks Workers United won its first union election last December in a store in Buffalo, NY, demanding better pay and healthcare benefits. The company has since retaliated against pro-union workers, holding mandatory anti-union meetings and even temporarily closing organizing stores. It also raised the wages of non-union workers, seemingly as an incentive to keep them from joining any organizing effort. The strife has continued as individual stores start to bargain for contracts; on Monday, Starbucks left the negotiating table at several locations across the country after workers remotely joined the proceedings via Zoom. The company alleged that the union was engaging in bad faith bargaining as a result.
“Starting here feels like a dream,” said Lee Kido, who has worked at the Roastery for over three years. “It very much feels like you’re walking into the Willy Wonka of coffee. And as I continued working there, it felt like this golden bubble popped for me. There’s a lot of chaos from management, and ever since we started organizing, there’s been tons of intimidation and fear and one-on-ones and captive audience meetings. It feels like management time and time again will just not listen to us.”
The Roastery became the first Starbucks store in New York City to unionize in April, and is the ninth store to do so in the company’s history. Since then, workers say they have yet to get a union contract.
“We’re still bargaining for a contract,” Kido said. “They won’t sit down at the table with us.”
“We have fully honored the process laid out by the NLRB, respect our partners’ right to engage in lawful union activities and look forward to resuming and starting collective bargaining sessions for more than 40 stores over the coming weeks,” the Starbucks spokesperson wrote.
The Wednesday strike was a continuation of a walkout strike started by Kosmopoulos the day before. “I had woken up Tuesday morning, and I was reading messages about my coworkers crying outside of work because the situation that we have to deal with is so stressful,” they said. “At that point, I was upset. I couldn’t just keep talking about doing a strike, I couldn’t just sit down anymore. It had to happen.” A third strike is planned for Thursday morning.