brought legal action<\/a> earlier this month against the coffee chain for changing the employee dress code \u2014 requiring a solid black shirt and khaki, black or blue denim bottoms \u2014 but allegedly refusing to reimburse workers who had to buy new clothes. <\/p>\nWorkers, backed by the union, filed lawsuits over the dress code in Illinois and Colorado, and lodged complaints with California\u2019s Labor and Workforce Development Agency.<\/p>\n
Contract talks with the company broke down in December. In February, federal mediators were brought in to resolve the dispute, but little progress was made. In April, the union voted to reject the coffee chain\u2019s latest proposal that guaranteed that annual raises would not fall below 2%.<\/p>\n
Since then, the union has regularly asked the company to return to the bargaining table, but has been met with silence for months, said Michelle Eisen, a spokesperson for the union and former Starbucks employee who worked at the company as recently as May. <\/p>\n
Eisen said new policies such as the updated uniform as well as requirements for handwritten messages on coffee cups that create bigger workloads have been implemented without the company properly bargaining with the union \u2014 and that workers are gearing up for a strike if necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201c<\/b>This is a warning shot. Workers aren\u2019t going to settle for nothing,\u201d Eisen said. \u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing this week is just the beginning of what workers are prepared to engage in to finalize the contract. It should be taken very seriously by the company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starbucks contends that the union is to blame for stalled contract talks by walking away from negotiations last winter. The company argues that union demands are untenable, with the company already offering competitive pay and benefits.<\/p>\n
Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson said in an email Saturday that the company offers 18 weeks of parental leave and \u201cindustry-leading benefits that add up to about $30 an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anderson these perks are helping the company \u201ckeep turnover at record lows and making Starbucks a place more partners recommend as a great place to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Starbucks union lambasted this week\u2019s announcement of store closures, arguing that it\u2019s the latest instance of the company\u2019s chief executive Brian Niccol making major decisions \u201cwith zero barista input.\u201d<\/p>\n
The union said it\u2019s still gathering information on how many union stores will be affected by the planned closures. <\/p>\n
Niccol did not specify how many stores would close, but said the company will end its fiscal year with nearly 18,300 stores across the U.S. and Canada. As of June 29, the company had 18,734 stores.<\/p>\n
Starbucks Workers United represents 12,000 workers at some 650 coffee shops. Their membership represents about 5% of Starbucks U.S. workforce, according to the company.<\/p>\n
Times staff writer Caroline Petrow-Cohen contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starbucks workers rallied at two Los Angeles area coffee shops over the weekend in an effort to pressure…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":260026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[42044,1582,276,136339,638,136334,136337,2961,224,5337,136336,82612,1809,136335,136338,4700,1439,15742,2452,17253],"class_list":{"0":"post-260025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-announcement","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-coffee-chain","12":"tag-company","13":"tag-contract-talk","14":"tag-employee-dress-code","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-losangeles","18":"tag-michelle-eisen","19":"tag-miracle-mile","20":"tag-protest","21":"tag-starbucks-barista","22":"tag-starbucks-shop","23":"tag-store","24":"tag-u-s","25":"tag-union","26":"tag-week","27":"tag-worker"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115279127300569878","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}