Caught Red-Cup-Handed: Why Starbucks (And All Employers) Must Provide Fair Schedules
Earlier this month, Starbucks agreed to pay a $38.9 million settlement to New York City—the largest worker protection settlement in the city’s history—for denying workers predictable schedules and other protections in violation of the city’s fair workweek law. We’re thrilled that New York City Starbucks workers are entitled to fair schedules—and compensation when those rights are violated. But many cities and states lack the same strong protections for workers that let them plan their lives by having access to predictable schedules in advance. That’s why unionized Starbucks workers across the country are striking to change Starbucks’ nationwide practice of giving workers unpredictable schedules, among other staffing and scheduling practices that make it hard for them to do their jobs and have a life outside work.
Starbucks often prides itself on the workplace benefits available to hourly employees, including health care, paid leave, retirement support, and help funding secondary education. And don’t get me wrong; these kinds of supports are great. But the devil is in the details. If you’re a barista at Starbucks, you need to average at least 20 hours a week, consistently over three months, to be eligible for health insurance coverage. If Starbucks isn’t giving their workers consistent hours, or giving part-time workers who want more hours the ability to pick up additional shifts, they will never be able to qualify for the shiny benefits the company is so fond of promoting.
Take the story of Arloa Fluhr, a barista working in Urbana, IL. Arloa is a mom of three kids, one of whom has diabetes. She needs the health insurance Starbucks provides to be able to pay for her daughter’s care. But because of understaffing and erratic scheduling, Arloa doesn’t have a consistent work schedule and hours, meaning she doesn’t know whether she will qualify for health insurance.
Unfortunately, that kind of instability and inconsistency is far too common for workers in food service, retail, and hospitality jobs. New research shows that roughly four in 10 workers in the U.S. have little or no control over their work schedules. More than one in four have less than two weeks’ notice of their work schedule, and a similar share have hours that fluctuate a lot from week to week based on their employers’ demands. Part-time workers like Arloa are even more likely to have low-quality schedules than full-time workers.
Luckily for all of us, there are ways to improve scheduling conditions for workers. Predictable scheduling laws (or “fair workweek” laws) are designed to help workers with unstable schedules get more stability, predictability, and control over their work hours. And part-time parity laws ensure that workers like Arloa can get access to the same workplace benefits whether they work part- or full-time hours.
Senator Warren, Representative DeLauro, and Representative Schakowsky are trying to do something about this. On December 17, they reintroduced the Schedules That Work Act and Part-Time Worker Bill of Rights Act to give workers stability and opportunity on the job, particularly in the hourly service sector positions where abusive scheduling practices are most prevalent. Similar fair scheduling laws are already in effect in cities around the country, and research shows that they’re working—for companies and for employees.
Stories of workers like Arloa remind us why work schedules are so important—and underscore the role that unions, and pro-worker legislation, can play in the fight for workers’ rights.
