The workers want better hours and increased staffing, and they are angry that Starbucks hasn\u2019t agreed on a contract nearly four years after workers\u00a0voted to unionize at a Buffalo store.<\/a>\u00a0Union votes at other locations followed, and about 550 of Starbucks\u2019 10,000 company-owned stores are now unionized. The coffee giant also has around 7,000 licensed locations at airports, grocery stores and other locales.<\/p>\n Workers and the company dispute the extent and impact of the strike, but Mamdani, Sanders and some state and city officials sought to amplify the baristas\u2019 message by mingling with scores of strikers and supporters outside a Starbucks shop in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are not demands of greed \u2014 these are demands of decency,\u201d Mamdani, a democratic socialist who ran on pledges to aid working-class people, told the crowd. Some workers carried giant mock-ups of Starbucks takeout cups, bearing the union\u2019s logo instead of the coffee chain\u2019s insignia.<\/p>\n Four years after the first shop\u2019s union vote, \u201cStarbucks has refused to sit down and negotiate a fair contract,\u201d said Sanders, a Vermont independent who\u00a0supported Mamdani\u2019s campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n A message seeking comment on the progressive politicians\u2019 picket-line visit was sent to Starbucks.<\/p>\n Striking baristas described a harried workplace with chronic short-staffing, online orders so complex that the ticket is sometimes longer than the cup, and last-minute calls to come in.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is the company\u2019s issue to give us the labor amount to schedule partners fairly, and they are not scheduling us fairly, no matter how much money we are making them,\u201d said Gabriel Pierre, 26, a shift supervisor at a store in suburban Bellmore.<\/p>\n Starbucks has been\u00a0trying to bounce back from<\/a>\u00a0a period of\u00a0lagging sales<\/a>\u00a0as inflation-conscious U.S. customers questioned whether its coffee concoctions were worth the money. The Seattle-based company recently reported the\u00a0first increase in nearly two years in same-store sales<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a term for sales at locations open at least a year \u2014 but restructuring costs, store redesigns and other changes took a bite out of profits in its July-September quarter.<\/p>\n Under the agreement<\/a>\u00a0announced Monday with New York City\u2019s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, Starbucks will pay $3.4 million in civil penalties, in addition to the $35 million it is paying workers. The company also agreed to comply with the city\u2019s\u00a0Fair Workweek law<\/a>\u00a0going forward.<\/p>\n The company said it\u2019s committed to operating responsibly and complying with all applicable local laws and regulations everywhere it does business, but Starbucks also noted the complexities of the city\u2019s law.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is notoriously challenging to manage,\u201d spokesperson Jaci Anderson said.<\/p>\n Most of the affected employees who held hourly positions will receive $50 for each week worked from July 2021 through July 2024, the department said. Workers who experienced a violation after that may be eligible for compensation by filing a complaint with the department.<\/p>\n \u201cI sure hope that it gives Starbucks an awakening,\u201d said Kaari Harsila, 21, a Brooklyn store shift supervisor who was picketing Monday.<\/p>\n The settlement also guarantees that employees laid off during recent store closings in the city will get an opportunity for reinstatement at other Starbucks locations.<\/p>\n The city began investigating in 2022 after receiving dozens of worker complaints against several Starbucks locations. The investigation eventually expanded to hundreds of stores. The city said the probe found, among other things, that most Starbucks employees never got regular schedules, making it difficult for staffers to plan other commitments, such as child care, education or other jobs.<\/p>\n The company also denied workers the chance to pick up extra shifts, so they remained part-timers even when they wanted to work more, according to the city.<\/p>\n Associated Press writer Bruce Shipkowski contributed from Toms River, New Jersey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Starbucks will pay about $35 million to more than 15,000 New York City workers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63,14094,31300,31301],"class_list":{"0":"post-57954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","10":"tag-brooklyn-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-starbucks","15":"tag-starbucks-labor-law-violations","16":"tag-starbucks-labor-lawsuit"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57954","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=57954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/AP25335815708013.jpg\")
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., visits striking Starbucks workers and supporters outside a Starbucks store in Brooklyn, New York, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (AP Photo\/Jennifer Peltz)<\/p>\n