On International Coffee Day Starbucks baristas showed up at corporate headquarters to ask for a meeting with CEO Howard Schultz to discuss concerns about scheduling.
Here's how one barista put it:
"I’m here for the people I work with, for the mothers, the students, the daughters. I’m here to make a system that can allow them to go to school, can allow them to go their son’s football games.
We are here because we are partners in this company. I am. We’re here to ask to be spoken to like a partner. We get a lot of conversations about how available we can be. But I think it’s time for Howard Schultz, for Starbucks, for every large corporation to be available to us, even if it’s just to listen.
We work hard, and there’s nothing wrong with working hard. But we need to be working for something, and towards something, and we need to work with each other. Our time counts."