Workers at Starbucks and Amazon Go convenience stores near Times Square filed petitions for union elections on Friday — and one worker said supporters were already feeling the heat from management, with articles and In response to the threat of citation, the Pro Union T-shirt.
Staffed exclusively by Starbucks employees, the 8th Avenue store is a cafe with a cashierless Amazon Go convenience store. The concept, which the retail giant debuted in his 2018, promises a “just walk-out” shopping experience with no checkout lines.
But a barista who spoke with THE CITY said the arrangement basically makes them do two different jobs for the price of one. Starbucks counter.
“We are overworked and underpaid,” said one worker who was asked to identify himself only as UU for fear of retaliation. “We work multiple different jobs for the same pay as other Starbucks employees. And that’s nonsense.”
With Starbucks and Amazon in one location, the arrangement has left staff entangled in two of the country’s most high-profile labor disputes.
Hal Battjes, a Starbucks barista, moved from his Rockefeller Center coffee shop over the summer to a then-planned Amazon Go joint venture.
“I was like, ‘Oh wow, now I’m at the epicenter of two companies that are anti-worker and anti-union,'” Batches said.
Starbucks Workers United has successfully organized nearly 6,500 workers in 243 locations nationwide since Starbucks in Buffalo won the nation’s first union election in December 2021.
“We are listening and learning from our partners in these stores, as we always do across the country,” a Starbucks spokesperson said in a statement Monday. Even if there is no unity between them, they have the belief that it is better to be together as partners, and that belief has not changed.
T-shirt trouble
Battjes said Starbucks management began threatening pro-union workers almost immediately after Friday morning’s filing.
Battjes and his colleagues showed up that day wearing shirts emblazoned with the Starbucks Workers United union logo. The conduct is protected by the National Labor Relations Act, but Starbucks said it violated its dress code, which prohibits non-company logos and slogans.
The policy was so draconian that Starbucks would ban employees from wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts in the summer of 2020, and days later the company backtracked on the move after public outcry. did.
“My graphic T-shirt was completely covered by a Starbucks apron, but I was told, ‘Don’t wear it again or I’ll send you home,'” Batches said.
The high-traffic location on the ground floor of the New York Times Building across from the Port Authority Bus Terminal opened its doors to customers for the first time in July. It promised the “effortless convenience” of mobile ordering to pick up drinks, a contactless Amazon Go marketplace selling snacks, juices and prepared meals, and a dining lounge.
A barista who spoke with THE CITY says that arranging is never easy. They act as both a coffee maker and a concierge to help customers who don’t understand how a grab-and-go Amazon store works.
The Starbucks counter is said to have been designed with mobile ordering in mind, but there’s only one cash register and there’s a constant line out the door.
Batches, who works the opening shift, said their day-to-day duties include both front- and back-of-house work, including setting up the kitchen and beverage counters for the morning coffee rush, and running inventory support for Amazon Go stores. This means everything from picking up packages delivered overnight, to scanning each item individually to stock shelves, to heating and preparing meals as the day goes on. .
amazon stop
“It’s a horrible setting. It’s very confusing and difficult to explain to people, especially when there’s a language barrier and a cultural barrier,” Batches said, referring to tourists who frequent the store. And it’s also very frustrating for our customers, who often piss us off.”
A barista who spoke to The City said employees were trained by Amazon at no extra charge.
“As soon as I got there, Amazon started piecing together some pieces, like not paying us that much. A worker who only wanted to be identified as a UU previously worked at a Starbucks in Rochester who voted to unionize this year.
“I was talking to one of the security guards one day and was like, ‘Hey, this is bullshit. They made us do this, it’s not right.
Some employees, including Battjes, said they were involuntarily transferred to the Amazon Go joint venture from Starbucks in other parts of the city before its debut this summer.
“We’re just a flock of sheep, sort of sending them out to shops that need them,” they said.
The joint venture is the second time the two Seattle-based giants have a store together.
More than 20 workers out of the Times Square store’s nearly 30 employees have signed on to support the union, Batches told THE CITY.
