Ithaca Starbucks Protests After Store Closure

After Starbucks announced they were permanently closing the Starbucks store in Ithaca, Starbucks Workers United community members and partners gathered at the entrance of the Starbucks on College Avenue to protest the company’s decision to permanently close the store this Friday. This decision left workers with less than a week’s notice, resulting in them calling for a boycott of other Starbucks stores around the city.

Cornell student Alayna Earl, who is a member of the union and has been working as a barista for two years at the store stated: “One thing that we’re worried about is if we transfer to a different store that already has a fully staffed team, are we still gonna get the same amount of hours that we’ve been getting at our old store?… They said things like … our efficiency wasn’t up to par, and they wanted to improve the customer and barista experience. But we weren’t consulted. They didn’t ask whether our store was efficient for us, it was kind of based on Starbucks standards, but then they weren’t really going over what the standards entailed.”

Source: NPR