{"id":338167,"date":"2026-09-04T16:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/338167\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T16:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:40:10","slug":"bitter-brew-starbucks-tops-nyc-comptrollers-list-of-employers-committing-labor-violations-across-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/338167\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitter brew: Starbucks tops NYC Comptroller\u2019s list of employers committing labor violations across city"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dozens of companies, big and small, across the five boroughs have made New York City Comptroller Mark Levine\u2019s<\/a> second-annual list of city businesses committing the most labor violations, released ahead of Labor Day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Coffee giant Starbucks topped the list, known as the Employer Violations Dashboard,<\/a> which\u00a0consolidates data from federal, state, and city enforcement agencies to identify employers who violated key labor laws across the city. Based on employee reporting and independent agency investigations, the comptroller\u2019s office uses the dashboard to track violations of federal, state and city workplace laws, health and safety violations, wage theft, illegal interference with unionization efforts and harassment.<\/p>\n

Starbucks took the first-place spot on the list of local labor law breakers: The company faced a nearly $40 million settlement<\/a> against it last December \u2014 the largest worker protection settlement in city history \u2014 for violations of the city\u2019s Fair Workweek Law, which requires employers to provide predictable schedules to employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McDonald\u2019s, Panera Bread, Gyro House, Uniqlo, PetCo and Hot Topic also made the list for local law violations that landed them financial penalties of around $50,000 to over $100,000 for violating the Fair Workweek Law and the city\u2019s Paid Sick Leave Law. They were joined by community center Bronx House<\/a>, which had to pay nearly $75,000 due to its city law violations last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Topping the list of wage theft violations<\/a> in 2025 is upscale Garment District Chinese restaurant Chef Yu<\/a>, which didn\u2019t pay its employees nearly $1 million they\u2019d earned, according to the dashboard. They\u2019re followed by Queens-based Paris Limousine Service<\/a>, which owed its workers about $900,000, Mediterranean snacks company Gourmet Health Ka\u2019a<\/a> and Brooklyn\u2019s Tasty Delicious Bakery, which owes workers nearly $400,000 in back pay, the comptroller\u2019s office said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York City Comptroller Mark LevinePhoto by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

While wage theft violations skewed towards smaller and mid-sized businesses, violations of local labor law<\/a> were more prevalent in larger corporations, according to the comptroller\u2019s analysis.<\/p>\n

Employers of all sizes made the list for violating workers\u2019 rights to unionize<\/a>. Development corporations and medical and utility service providers like the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Maxwell Plumbing Mechanical Corporation<\/a>, 100 Claremont Condominium and Mount Sinai appeared alongside Brooklyn\u2019s indie Nitehawk theatre, since-closed vegan bakery Clementine, Best Friends Animal Society and the Center for Family Representation in the comptroller\u2019s list of employers who\u2019d been reported to the National Labor Relations Board for illegally interfering with and retaliating against employees\u2019 unionization efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The comptroller\u2019s office analysis also took an accounting of workplaces that had been successfully sued for harassment and discrimination. INS Handbags<\/a> is listed as the top offender with a settlement of over $200,000 against it for pregnancy discrimination. It\u2019s followed by fast-casual chain Fresh & Co<\/a> and FedEx, which were hit with more than $100,000 settlements for sexual harassment and discrimination against workers with criminal histories, respectively.<\/p>\n

This tracking is important, Levine said, because it helps the public know which employers are following the law and which aren\u2019t and helps to hold bosses accountable.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York City has a rich history in the labor movement to secure hard-fought rights,\u201d Levine said in a statement. \u201cThe Employer Violations Dashboard is an essential tool to hold bad actors accountable and help working New Yorkers understand who does or does not foster a healthy work environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comptroller\u2019s report also dinged<\/a> city-contracted developers and construction companies who were performing work on city buildings or buildings getting tax breaks on the city\u2019s dime and weren\u2019t paying workers properly according to minimum wage and benefits laws.<\/p>\n

More than 50 companies the city paid to do work were violating worker pay laws and were ordered to pay roughly $20 million in penalties to the city and the workers they\u2019d shortchanged last year, the comptroller\u2019s office found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens of companies, big and small, across the five boroughs have made New York City Comptroller Mark Levine\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1213,110475,2710,9,24,55,54,127033,56,79772,14094],"class_list":["post-338167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-labor","tag-labor-violations","tag-law","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-nitehawk","tag-ny","tag-nyc-comptroller-mark-levine","tag-starbucks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}