Starbucks is writing a $38.9 million check to New York City after the city found the company racked up more than half a million violations of the Fair Workweek law. Half a million. To put it another way, Starbucks was repeatedly (around 500,000 times) breaking the Fair Workweek rules — like cutting workers’ hours without a valid reason, changing schedules at the last minute, not giving the required advance notice, or failing to provide a stable weekly schedule.
The city launched its investigation in 2022 after receiving multiple complaints from workers, and it later broadened the review to include hundreds of Starbucks stores across New York City.
Mayor Eric Adams called the settlement the largest worker-protection payout in city history, with more than 15,000 hourly Starbucks workers set to receive restitution. The city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection concluded that the company routinely cut hours and failed to provide stable schedules, among other things.
Starbucks baristas have been complaining for years about being on the receiving end of chopped hours and last-minute reshuffles that make second jobs, child care, or a normal circadian rhythm harder to maintain.
The settlement landed while some New York Starbucks workers were already on the picket line. Unionized baristas have been protesting for higher wages and stronger protections.
Starbucks says the problem wasn’t intentional and points to how strict the law is. According to the coffee chain, the Fair Workweek rules are “notoriously challenging for businesses to navigate,” and the violations were “about compliance” — meaning the company says workers were paid, but the scheduling changes didn’t meet the technical requirements of the law.
Under the agreement, Starbucks will pay eligible hourly employees $50 for every week they worked between July 2021 and July 2024. Current and former workers who qualify will receive the payments directly from the company, and Starbucks says it will contact each person with details on how and when those payouts will be distributed.
While hourly workers are about to receive $50 per week they worked during the violation period, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol is enjoying his multi-million dollar salary; Niccol took home $96 million in 2024. That works out to a pay ratio of about 6,666-to-1 when compared to Starbucks’ median barista wage of $14,674. He also commutes to work on a private jet, because of course he does.
That $39 million payout kind of seems like chump change now, doesn’t it?
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