After the workers at a Starbucks store in Ithaca, New York, went on strike last April, a communications specialist from the public-relations firm Edelman emailed a “real-time alert” to corporate Starbucks officials.
“Flagging an article from The Ithacan that discusses the Cornell University Starbucks strike,” the specialist wrote. “Partners went on strike due to repeated grease trap spills that caused an unsafe environment and lack of action from management.”
The story renewed discussion among Starbucks management about what to do with the store. A regional director recommended closure because “the space is not meeting our partners or brand needs,” but she also noted they were exploring the possibility of a renovation.
Starbucks ended up shuttering the store permanently two months later, leading workers and federal labor enforcers to accuse the company of retaliation. The workers had recently voted 19-1 in favor of joining Workers United, making it one of 300 corporate-owned Starbucks stores nationwide that have been organized since late 2021. The emails, which Starbucks disclosed in a recent trial at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), shed light on the thinking among Starbucks brass leading up to the closure. The store was in a prime location with great sales potential but suffered serious maintenance issues, chief among them the overflowing grease trap.
In June, Denise Nelsen, senior vice president of U.S. operations, emailed Rossann Williams, then the head of Starbucks’ business in North America, about the debate over whether to close the store permanently or renovate it.
“We have to solve these condition issues because we also keep getting media on the store condition there,” Nelsen wrote. Kolya Vitek, a barista who worked at the College Avenue location, argued that the walkout’s unwanted attention prompted Starbucks to shutter the store for good.
“It was retaliation for the strike we went on because we were being forced to work in unsafe conditions,” said Vitek, who now works in a different Starbucks store in Ithaca. “They didn’t care [before]. They cared all of a sudden now when we’re making national news.”
“We have to solve these condition issues because we also keep getting media on the store condition there.”- Starbucks official Denise Nelsen in an email to coworkers
Starbucks insists it closed the cafe for legitimate business reasons, saying its concerns with the store stretched back to the previous year. The company also denied that negative press played any role in the call.
“Media attention had no bearing on our decision to close the store,” Andrew Trull, a company spokesperson, told HuffPost.
It would be illegal for a company to shut down an individual worksite because of union activity there. The NLRB’s general counsel found merit in the union’s claims in Ithaca and brought a sweeping complaint against the company last November. According to the union, Starbucks informed workers on June 3, 2022, that the College Avenue store would be closing permanently. But the Starbucks emails suggest the company was still undecided at the time about what it should do with the cafe, partly because the location was so solid.