Starbucks fires Buffalo worker who founded union campaign
Two days after the Starbucks chairman and former CEO Howard Schultz was grilled during a Senate committee hearing on the company’s response to union organizing at its stores, Starbucks fired three union organizers and disciplined another organizer in the Buffalo, New York, area where the union campaign began.
Among those to lose their jobs was Lexi Rizzo, a shift supervisor for seven years in Buffalo at one of the first stores to unionize and a leading founder of the union campaign. The union has characterized the actions as retaliation.
“My store manager was sobbing her eyes out when she was firing me about how much she knew I loved and cared about my store and how she didn’t want to do this. I put everything I have into my store,” said Rizzo, who was fired on Friday 31 March. “It’s honestly, so far in my life, one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve had happen. Anyone that I work with, any of my partners would attest to how much I love and care for my store.”
Rizzo worked at one of the first two Starbucks stores to unionize in the US in Buffalo and has served on the organizing committee since the campaign first launched in August 2021. Starbucks denied the store manager sobbed when firing Rizzo.
Rizzo said the reason provided for her termination was tardiness, with the latest cited tardiness being two months ago. Previous write-ups she received were included in a sweeping administrative law judge decision issued in March 2023 over firings, retaliation and retaliatory discipline of Starbucks workers in the Buffalo area, with Starbucks noting one tardiness write-up was upheld in the decision.
“They cited two times when I was one minute late to work. Another time, I was four minutes late to work and another time, I was five
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