A Starbucks Worker Fired for Organizing Got His Job Back Thanks to NYC “Just Cause” Laws
A Queens Starbucks worker was one of many across the country fired in retaliation for union organizing. Thanks to NYC laws that require due process for firing fast-food workers, he was reinstated.
Queens Starbucks worker Austin Locke, September 3, 2022. (Luigi W Morris / Twitter)
In a few days Austin Locke will walk back into the Queens, New York, Starbucks store he was fired from seven months ago. He’ll also get a wad of back pay, and money from civil penalties.
Locke had a target on his back because he was involved in a union drive at the store, but his reinstatement didn’t come from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Instead, his case was taken up by the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), under a city law passed in 2021 which makes unjust firings in fast food illegal.
Two recent city laws protecting fast-food workers, the 2017 Fair Workweek Law and the 2021 just-cause legislation, have resulted in 230 investigations, resulting in nearly $27.1 million in combined fines and restitution for more than 20,100 workers, according to Michael Lanza of the DCWP. Chipotle paid $20 million in September.
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