She's Still Fighting Starbucks Four Years Later

"Honey's Bistro, a fast-casual café just steps away from the LIRR in Glen Head, features many of the telltale signifiers of 2010s design and menu planning. A letter-board menu lines the wall, plastic cups are printed with GOOD VIBES SERVED DAILY, millennial pink is used liberally, and white-chocolate-pistachio matcha lattes are on offer. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, Michelle Eisen, a 42-year-old Starbucks barista turned union leader, settles on a wooden banquette, an empty coffee cup in front of her."

"Eisen, who was instrumental in the Starbucks unionization fight that has spread across the country and intensified since November into an open-ended strike at about 150 stores, will often reiterate that the company was once a good place to work. In 2010, when she started at a location in Buffalo, where she grew up, employees were trained well, had decent benefits, and could trust that their shifts would be appropriately staffed."

"She pinpoints the 2017 introduction of the "Unicorn frappucino" as the moment she realized Starbucks was going downhill. "They sent enough product to last two hours," Eisen recalls. The "ridiculous" multi-ingredient drink was evidence that standards had shifted away from quality control to "anything goes." By 2018, she says, the only insurance she could afford was the high-deductible plan. Like many in the service industries, she was exhausted by working through the pandemic."

Michelle Eisen, a 42-year-old former Starbucks barista turned union leader, began at Starbucks in 2010 with solid training, decent benefits, and reliable staffing that allowed her to work another job. She identifies 2017's Unicorn Frappuccino as a turning point when quality control gave way to gimmickry and inadequate supply. By 2018 she could only afford a high-deductible insurance plan. Workers continued serving customers through the pandemic while the company recorded record profits that did not reach employees. Those conditions helped fuel a nationwide unionization drive and an open-ended strike at about 150 stores.

Read at Grub Street