Anderson Starbucks employees begin second strike this summer

Starbucks employees went on strike for a second time this summer on Friday morning at the Anderson location on Interstate 85 and Clemson Boulevard.

Employees there went on strike in early June, just shortly after joining two other South Carolina Starbucks, from Greenville and Columbia, in voting for union representation.

The Anderson location was the first in the South to unanimously vote, 18-0, to unionize, according to a union Twitter account.

Staff at the Anderson located began their strike at 7:30 a.m. Friday, right in the middle of their peak hours and will continue striking throughout the weekend. Saturday they will hold a sit-in and Sunday are returning to picket throughout the day.

"We always schedule to what we believe the store needs based on customer behaviors. We continue to have thoughtful 1:1 conversations with local leaders about scheduling to forecast to see what adjustments need to be made for the business," a Starbucks spokesperson told The News.

'Empty promises':Anderson Starbucks employees begin strike

The employees at the Anderson location said they are only getting paid $12 an hour and are having their hours cut. They currently close at 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday but a two-and-a-half-hour change to an 8:30 p.m. closing time might be in the future.

According to a Starbucks spokesperson, on August 1, average hourly pay at Starbucks will be nearly $17/hour nationally. All partners hired on or before May 2 will get either a 3% raise or $15/hour.

In a New York Times interview with Howard Schultz, he said he is not anti-union. Starbucks employee Aneil Tripathi said Schultz would not recognize the union and would not come to the bargaining table to discuss unionization.

According to the National Labor Relations Board, employers have a legal duty to bargain in good faith with their employees' representatives and to sign any collective bargaining agreement that has been reached. This includes a duty not to make certain changes without bargaining with the union and not to bypass the union and deal directly with employees it represents.

In addition, the Anderson location has had broken equipment that has been ignored.

"We've gotten a new nitro-generator but it's half the size of the old one so we are running out of storage. This makes it a lot harder to carry 50-pound kegs back and forth in the store to hook them up," Tripathi said.

Their sticker printer in the store has been broken for some time as well and production has been slowed down.

Starbucks is planning on closing 16 stores with 10 of those stores being unionized, according to Tripathi.

"Starbucks is planning on closing 16 stores for safety concerns, only 2 of which are unionized," according to a Starbucks spokesperson.

"Our district manager and regional director have not sat down with us. But recently we've put up "Wanted: Howard Schultz" posters, demanding him to come to the bargaining table and our district manager came into our store and tore them down," Tripathi said.

Tripathi said they've had a lot of support from customers who've driven by.

Employees set up a GoFundMe online fundraiser to raise money to replace lost wages and had raised over $3,000 by Friday afternoon.

Tamia Boyd is a Michigan native who covers breaking news in Greenville. Email her at tboyd@gannett.com, and follow her on Twitter @tamiamb.

This article originally appeared on Anderson Independent Mail: Anderson Starbucks to picket outside store, sit-in throughout weekend