Starbucks to pay $39 million in landmark New York City labor law settlement

Starbucks workers picket outside a Starbucks location in Brooklyn, on Monday, Dec. 1, 2025, to push for higher wages and improved labor practices. Starbucks agreed to the settlement after failing to give workers stable schedules. Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) joined striking Starbucks workers in Brooklyn. (Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times)

By EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS

Mayor Eric Adams announced a $38.9 million settlement with Starbucks earlier this week over violations of New York City’s law guaranteeing fair working conditions, a resolution that city officials said was the largest worker protection settlement in the city’s history.

The city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection found that Starbucks had violated the law more than 500,000 times since 2021 by failing to provide workers with stable schedules. More than 15,000 hourly workers are expected to receive restitution payments under the agreement.

Workers have complained for years that the coffee behemoth was cutting their hours and refusing to give them predictable schedules. The city found that the company “arbitrarily cut schedules and illegally prioritized their own profits over their workers’ rights” across more than 300 locations.

“With this landmark settlement, we’ll put tens of millions of dollars back into the pockets of hardworking New Yorkers and reinforce every New Yorker’s right to a reliable schedule, full hours and basic dignity,” Adams said in a statement.

The city’s Fair Workweek Law was approved in 2017 by the City Council. Fast food employers must give workers regular schedules that stay the same week to week, must provide schedules 14 days in advance and cannot reduce hours by more than 15% without “just cause or a legitimate business reason.”

Starbucks said in a statement that the law was “notoriously challenging for businesses to navigate.” The company said that the violations were “about compliance” and “not about withholding wages or failing to pay partners.”

Adams, a Democrat who will leave office at the end of the month, has criticized Starbucks and stood with the workers, posting photos two years ago from a meeting with them.

His successor, Zohran Mamdani, has also embraced Starbucks workers and supported a strike by some of the company’s unionized workers to help them gain higher wages during contract negotiations.

On Monday, Mamdani appeared with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., alongside striking workers at a Starbucks store in Brooklyn. The mayor-elect said that New Yorkers should expect him to back striking workers even after he takes office.

“When I become mayor of this city, I am going to continue to stand on picket lines with workers across the five boroughs,” he said, adding, “We want to build an administration that is characterized by being there for workers every single step of the way.”

Mamdani, a democratic socialist, is expected to embrace more worker-friendly policies than Adams did, potentially further alienating business leaders who have already expressed skepticism over his affordability agenda.

Mamdani has proposed raising the maximum corporate tax rate to 11.5%, from 7.25%, and adding a 2% tax on those who make more than $1 million to help pay for some of his proposals.

Sanders, who endorsed Mamdani in his run for mayor, assailed what he described as Starbucks’ “corporate greed.”

“We are living in an economy where the people on top have never, ever had it so good,” he said.

Mamdani, who has urged New Yorkers not to patronize Starbucks until the strike is over, said he wanted to show solidarity with the workers, and praised the city’s settlement.

“These are demands for decency,” Mamdani said. “These are workers who are simply being asked to be treated with the respect they deserve.”

Starbucks Workers United, which represents more than 12,000 baristas at more than 600 locations, voted to authorize a strike at some stores that has lasted 19 days. This year, Starbucks and the union brought in a mediator in a push to revive contract talks, which had stalled over an impasse on wage increases.

For more than a decade, Starbucks workers have raised concerns about harsh working conditions. The company changed some of its practices in 2014.

New York City’s investigation found that most Starbucks employees never received regular schedules, making it difficult for them to manage child care or second jobs. The company also “routinely and unlawfully reduced employees’ hours by more than 15%,” the city found, which made it difficult for them to get by.

Under the settlement, most employees who worked for Starbucks in an hourly position from July 2021 through July 2024 will receive $50 for each week they worked. An employee who worked at a store for a year and a half could receive nearly $4,000.

Julie Menin, a City Council member from Manhattan who recently announced that she had enough support to become the next Council speaker, also celebrated the settlement.

“Today’s victory serves as a message to corporations: NYC will protect workers and hold violators accountable,” she wrote on social media.

Outside the Starbucks in Brooklyn, Mamdani and Sanders were asked about President Donald Trump’s characterizing himself as the “affordability president.” Mamdani, whose meeting with the president at the White House last month was astonishingly affectionate, gave a diplomatic response, saying he was focused on how “we actually deliver” for working people.

Sanders was less tactful, calling Trump a “pathological liar.”