Starbucks hit with $40M settlement over worker scheduling violations
Starbucks has agreed to pay a major settlement of nearly $40 million after a city investigation found the company repeatedly broke New York City's law requiring fast food and other businesses to give workers predictable and stable schedules.
The New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) found that Starbucks failed in several areas of compliance, according to the consent order .
These violations led to the total payment of $38.9 million, which includes a hefty civil penalty of over $3.3 million paid to the city, with the rest going directly to more than 15,000 current and former employees in New York City.
The city found that Starbucks failed to provide regular schedules to its employees, discharged fast food employees by reducing their hours of work by more than 15% without written consent and offered assigned shifts to new hires without first offering these shifts to current employees.
All are violations of the 2017 city law, according to the Nov. 26 agreement.
Starbucks told MassLive in a statement that "it supports the intent of New York City's law, but that complying with it is challenging. A company can violate the law, for example, if an employee calls out of a shift and another worker is asked to cover that time."
"The law treats almost any adjustment as a potential issue – even starting a shift two hours later than planned, even if the total hours and pay stay the same," the coffeehouse chain continued.
Affected workers will receive $50 checks this winter for each week they worked between July 4, 2021 and July 7, 2024, the DCWP determined.
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