Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz testifies about the company’s labor and union practices during a Senate Committee hearing on Health, Education, Work and Pensions on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC , March 29, 2023.
Saul loeb | AFP | beautiful pictures
Starbucks fired Alexis Rizzo, the employee responsible for initiating the Starbucks Workers union campaign, just days after the company’s former CEO Howard Schultz testify about Capital Hill on the coffee chain’s alleged bankruptcy, CNBC confirmed.
Rizzo worked as a shift supervisor at Starbucks for seven years and served as a union leader at the Genesee St. in Buffalo, New York, it was one of the first two stores in the country to win a union campaign.
Starbucks worker United announces termination of contract with Rizzo in a Saturday tweet and say in one respective GoFundMe page that “this is retaliation at its worst.”
“I’m really heartbroken. It’s not just work for me. It’s like my family,” Rizzo told CNBC in an interview. “It’s like losing everything. I’ve been there since I was 17. It’s like my entire support system and I think they know it.”
Rizzo said her store managers fired her after she finished her shift on Friday. She said they told her it was because she was late four times – two of which were instances where she was a minute late. Rizzo suspects she was released after Wednesday’s Senate hearing, she said.
Schultz faced a series of conundrums from Senator Bernie Sanders on Wednesday about Starbucks’ labor and union practices. Sanders, an independent union advocate representing Vermont, has been pressuring Starbucks for more than a year to recognize unions and negotiate contracts with unionized cafes.
Sanders chairs the Senate Health, Education, Work and Pensions Committee, which conducts the panel.
During the hearing, Sanders said that Starbucks engaged in “the most illegal and aggressive anti-union campaign in our nation’s modern history.” He also accused the company of delaying collective bargaining agreements, betting that workers would give up and leave the coffee chain.
Schultz defended Starbucks’ approach to its negotiations, asserting that a direct relationship with workers is in the company’s best interest. He has also repeatedly denied that the company has ever violated federal labor laws and said his focus during his time as interim CEO has been 99% focused on operations, not combat. Union.
“I don’t think it was a coincidence that two days after Howard Schultz was bruised by his ego the way he did, he started lashing out at Buffalo,” Rizzo said. She added that two other employees were also fired on Friday.
Starbucks spokeswoman Rachel Wall said the split at the company only occurred after clear policy violations. In this case, she said there were numerous attendance violations that affected other bartenders at this store location.
“We appreciate that our Genesee St. partners provided the Starbucks Experience to each other and to our customers this morning, and that stores in that area continue to serve customers. without interruption this weekend,” she told CNBC in a statement.
According to data from the National Labor Relations Board, nearly 300 Starbucks cafes voted to form a union under the name Starbucks worker United. In total, the union filed more than 500 complaints about unfair labor practices involving Starbucks with the federal labor commission. Starbucks has filed about 100 complaints of its own against the union. The judges found that the company violated federal labor laws 130 times.
None of the consolidated stores agreed to contract with Starbucks.
Rizzo said she is still “shocked” about being fired, but she plans to fight for her position.
“We will continue to fight to make things right,” she said. “I will fight to get my job back and get reinstated.”
— Amelia Lucas of CNBC contributed to this report.
