Inside a week of fear, confusion, and coughing at branches around the country before the coffee giant took decisive action.
, it boasted that in late January it had been “among the first major brands to proactively close their retail stores.” Starbucks’s top executive in China explained the move: “We had to quickly decide how we were going to lead.”
On March 11, as confirmed US cases reached 1,700, Starbucks announced that it was expanding its “catastrophe pay” policy — a two-week paid leave reserved for “a natural disaster or unusual event,” according to the company handbook — to include anyone who is “diagnosed with or exposed to COVID-19,” as well as people with underlying conditions and people who recently travelled to China, South Korea, Iran, or Italy.
An employee who had recently returned from a cruise to the Bahamas and Dominican Republic said that she was rejected for paid leave because those countries weren’t on the list of “level three” hot spots — so she continued to go to work. Another employee who said that she was immunocompromised said she was rejected because she wasn’t able to schedule an appointment with a doctor. She, too, continued to go to work.
Asked why Starbucks didn’t close its cafés earlier, the Starbucks spokesperson said that the number of customers showing up caught the company off guard. “That we would have a group of people coming into our lobby was surprising,” the spokesperson said. During the conversation, “my manager looked at me and goes, ‘I think I had Corona,’” the employee said. The manager recalled feeling sick during the first week of March, the employee said, but kept coming in to work.
She wore gloves, but didn’t have time to change them after every transaction because the customers lined up faster than they could make drinks. Behind her in the café, where chairs were stacked, tables were moved to the side, and posted signs noted that the seating area was closed, customers “would just be in our lobby standing and holding impromptu meetings,” she said, some for as long as 20 minutes after they’d gotten their orders.
“Our baristas and shift-supervisors are scared and are turning to me for guidance, but I am scared as fuck.” When the Arizona employee asked her manager about wearing a face mask, she was met with silence and what felt like an uncomfortable look. Three employees at the sporting goods store Cabela’s told BuzzFeed News that the company wasn’t enacting any distancing protocols despite the rush of customers flocking to buy weapons — “well more than 50 people at any given time waiting to get a gun all in one area,” one employee said. Cabela’s did not respond to a request for comment.
“Our baristas and shift supervisors are scared and are turning to me for guidance, but I am scared as fuck,” a store manager in Northern California told BuzzFeed News on March 18 as confirmed US cases reached 13,700. “I’ve cried every day since last Friday.” When it comes to informing the public about employees diagnosed with COVID-19, Starbucks has said little. Though Starbucks announced on March 6 that a Seattle branch would close for “a deep clean” after an employee was diagnosed, the company has not publicized any deep cleans or confirmed cases since then.
Three store managers told BuzzFeed News that their bosses gave them discretion to temporarily close a store due to possible exposure, but discouraged them from doing so without evidence of a test. “It puts an enormous responsibility on us,” one manager said. Last week, Starbucks executives informed store managers that it was expanding the catastrophe pay policy to cover anyone able to obtain a doctor’s note recommending that they self-isolate. The company authorized store managers to submit employee requests directly to district managers, who oversee stores in a given region, on a “case by case basis,” according to the three store managers, as well as eight employees who spoke with their bosses about the policy.
“From the very beginning we’ve been consistent about this,” the spokesperson said. “For us to tell a partner that you need to have a confirmed test wouldn’t be reflective of who we are.”
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