Restaurants

Protesters gather outside Leesburg Starbucks store

The backlash by workers against Starbucks management — including strikes and protests around the country — has come to Loudoun County this weekend.

Protesters and striking workers gathered outside the Starbucks on Market Street in Leesburg this morning. Customers tell The Burn that the Market Street location was temporarily closed because of the action.

According to a GoFundMe page, workers at the Leesburg store are concerned about steep cuts in their hours.

“Employees (are) struggling to pay bills,” the appeal reads. “Many employees are now not meeting the minimum number of hours to be eligible for health coverage.”

This is just one of many ULP strikes that have hit Starbucks locations around the U.S. ULP stands for unfair labor practices.

In recent weeks, similar strikes have hit Starbucks stores in Portland OR, Kansas City MO and Peoria IL.

The strikes are related to a huge push by Starbucks workers to unionize that has swept quickly across many of the brand’s roughly 15,000 coffee shops in the country.

In other Starbucks news, there are reports that the brand’s mobile ordering app is down across the country — the second time a wide outage has hit the app this month.

 

8 Comments
  1. Chris 2 years ago

    So, “many workers are not meeting the minimum number of hours”

    That’s fascinating, because the Starbucks on market is often just… Closed. So… If that’s because corporate isn’t scheduling enough people to keep it open, that’s insane.

  2. jsm11482 2 years ago

    Why would Starbucks give people more hours than the number of hours for which they need coverage? People are welcome to find employment elsewhere, I don’t get it.

  3. Curtis Ellor 2 years ago

    The age old argument of unionization vs non-unionization… socialism vs capitalism… although I sympathize with their plight, they do have the choices to look elsewhere….they are not owed or guaranteed what they wish and it’s one of the most fundamental tenets of our society…The Bernie, Ocasio, and Warren crowd will be all over it soon enough, as they’re time is getting shorter by the minute… Remember November.

  4. DD 2 years ago

    More power to these workers. Starbucks made record profits last year. It’s only fair to share that with the employees that make it possible.

    I’m only disappointed that Starbucks won’t do this without such strong pushback from their employees.

    Unions are in the way back and that’s for good reason.

  5. Christopher McHale 2 years ago

    I represent a small family owned coffee company with 5 stores. Their employees also complain about now having enough hours. Someone recently quit so the business posted all of that employees hours. 28 employees saw the post, not 1 person picked up an extra shift. Not enough schedule hours means “not enough hours that meet my schedule”.

  6. James Newhard 2 years ago

    I have worked in retail and food management for over 30 years. I do support competitive wages for the work being completed. However in retail & food the majority of applicants I interview do not want to work weekends or holidays. Furthermore, they want to work mornings only. Well unfortunately that is not when we arebusy in retail or restaurant. The wage argument includes many more facets then people are willing to see. Until society begins to value time off differently and change their shopping behaviors, the wage/hiring problem will persist.

  7. Clinton L. 2 years ago

    People cried for an abnormally irrationally high minimum wage, and what they got in return – as predicted – was decreased hours and replacement of people by machines or kiosks. Can’t wait to see where this is heading long term.

  8. Robert 2 years ago

    People don’t want to work. The new norm is 32 hour work week and the higher minimum wage means business will cut back hours. I’d wager most picketing, didn’t even work at that Starbucks, they were probably paid by some union.

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