Unionized Starbucks baristas in Chicago filed 10 complaints Wednesday alleging the company violated the city’s Fair Workweek Ordinance.
The city’s fair workweek law requires certain employers give staff advance notice of their schedules and pay a premium for last-minute changes. It also requires employers offer part-time employees additional hours before hiring new workers to fill shifts.
The Starbucks complaints were filed by 14 baristas who work across three unionized stores in the city. The Starbucks locations where the baristas work are 116 S. Halsted St. in the Greektown neighborhood and 6350 N. Broadway and 5964 N. Ridge Ave., both in the Edgewater neighborhood.
Baristas at all three stores are unionized with Starbucks Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. The complaints follow a set of similar allegations filed against the company in New York City, where unionized baristas across more than 50 stores have filed 76 fair workweek complaints against the coffee giant, according to a union spokesperson .
In the Chicago complaints, baristas alleged Starbucks violated the city’s Fair Workweek Ordinance by not providing “good faith” estimates of their typical weekly schedules and by not paying workers the higher rate of pay required by law when their shifts are changed at the last minute. In one complaint, for instance, the barista alleged that when she had to stay 15 minutes late at the cafe, a manager changed her scheduled clock-out time so it looked like she had been initially scheduled for a longer shift. Baristas also alleged Starbucks has violated the ordinance by hiring new baristas to cover shifts before offering them to existing staff.
The baristas who filed complaints are not alleging Starbucks has violated the component of the ordinance that requires the company to provide 14 days’ notice of their weekly schedules.
However, the workers allege Starbucks failed to comply with a provision of the law that requires employers give workers a “good faith” estimate of the average number of hours they can expect to work in a week as well as a set of days and times employees can expect their shifts to take place for the first 90 days of their employment.
“We make every effort and have invested significant resources to ensure partner scheduling practices are in alignment with Chicago’s Fair Workweek ordinance,” Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull said in a statement. Starbucks said it schedules workers three weeks in advance based on their availability and the stores’ operational needs.
Lillie Elling, a barista at the Greektown Starbucks, alleged in the complaint of never receiving a “good faith” estimate of a typical working schedule. “(The schedules) are different every week,” said Elling, who has worked for Starbucks since 2022. “There’s really no rhyme or reason.”
Elling said the unpredictability can make it hard for baristas to plan their lives.
“I myself have family out of state and so if I want to visit them or if an emergency comes up, it’s very hard for me to go home,” said Elling, who is also a member of the store’s union organizing committee.
The first Starbucks baristas to unionize with Starbucks Workers United did so in Buffalo, New York, in late 2021. Since then, workers at nearly 400 of the company’s 9,300 company-owned U.S. stores have voted to unionize. None have secured first contracts; officials with the National Labor Relations Board have filed two nationwide complaints alleging the company has failed to bargain in good faith with a majority of its unionized stores across 42 states and D.C., including in Chicago.
Labor board officials have also accused the company of a wide range of labor law violations throughout the union push, including by firing union leaders and closing cafes in response to union drives. Administrative law judges for the NLRB have found violations in 48 of 49 cases that have been heard so far, according to the agency.
Trull said Starbucks disagrees that the company engages in union busting.
“As alleged unfair labor practice charges work (their) way through the dispute resolution process designed by Congress, we continue to act in a manner that is consistent with established law, rooted in our mission, values and promises, and responsive to our partners — regardless of union status,” he said.
A hearing for one of the bargaining complaints was canceled because of a scheduling conflict and is expected to be rescheduled soon, according to NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado; a hearing for the second bargaining complaint is scheduled in May.
Since Chicago’s fair workweek law took effect in summer 2020, the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection’s Office of Labor Standards has received 389 complaints under the law, said spokesperson Elisa Sledzinska. The city has cited five employers for violations of the ordinance and collected fines totaling $71,000, she said. Employees of the cited employers have received a total of $460,000 in restitution.
