Last Monday, 21-year-old barista Coulson Loptmann says he was fired from a downtown Seattle Starbucks where heâd worked for more than a year. The reason? He ate a sandwich that had been thrown away. Really. Like most cafes, the coffee giant gets rid of food that has expired; they donate what they can and toss the more perishable items.
Loptmann, who says he couldnât get enough hours to pay his bills and survives partly on his food stamps, explains, âI hadnât eaten all day and I was on a seven-hour shift.â A coworker had just marked some breakfast sandwiches out of stock, and he figured no one would mind if he grabbed one of the plastic-wrapped sausage sandwiches out of the trash can.
But Starbucks did mind. According to Loptmann, his manager sat him down a week later and told him sheâd found out about the sandwich and contacted HR, âand they consider it stealing, and itâs against policy. So Iâm sorry, but I have to terminate you.â She fired him on the spot.
The incident comes up just as fast-food workers prepare for another strike this Thursdayâand this time, they're asking baristas to join them. Seattle's fast-food walkouts this spring were extraordinarily successful, shutting down multiple restaurants, and this week, organizers for Good Jobs Seattle are encouraging low-wage workers in coffee shops to join the national push for a $15 an hour minimum wage.
For the company's part, Starbucks spokesman Zack Hutson says that while they canât comment on individual employees for privacy reasons, he can confirm that âit is a violation of our policy to consume marked-out products." But he says itâs not considered stealingâitâs for the employeesâ own good. âWe do not want our partners to consume potentially spoiled products and get sick.â Could someone be fired for breaking the policy? I asked. âIn general,â says Hutson, âa partner would not be separated for a single, minor infraction like violating this policy. However, a partner could be separated for an infraction like this if it was the culmination of broader, ongoing performance issues.â
In other words: Yes, it is entirely possible for a Starbucks worker on food stamps to be fired (err, âseparatedâ) for eating a sandwich out of the trash.
Loptmann insists he didn't have any "ongoing performance issues" before the incident or problems with his manager. âThe coworkers and my manager were actually really great,â he says. Loptmann insists the policy he was taught "never says anything about donât eat it," and that his manager cited stealing, not his own health and safety, as the reason for termination. "I understand completely they donât want someone to mark something out just to eat it," says Loptmann. "I didnât mark it out, someone else did." Of his manager, he says charitably, âItâs not her fault⊠She knows what itâs like. But she canât do anything⊠These were the policies put in place by people who actually have power.â
Loptmann had been hired in 2012 as a close-to-full-time employee, he says, but after a couple of months, his hours started disappearing. Soon he was working anywhere between 23 and 32 hours a week, for $9.94 an hour plus about $30 a week in tips, with a schedule he calls âextremely variable.â Even if he was scheduled, he could still be sent home if the store got slow.
Loptmann says he had to get food stamps to make ends meet, and scraping up enough for lunch every day was still hard. âIt sounds ridiculous, but having bread and mustard and mayonnaise and some kind of meat and lettuceâit doesnât sound expensive, but that adds up⊠There were some days where I lived off of Starbucks food.â He got a 30 percent discount and a couple of free coffees a day.
The day of the sandwich incident, he says, his coworker was marking sandwiches out of stock and throwing them away. âShe said, âWhat a waste, huh?ââ remembers Loptmann. âAnd she tossed it in the garbage. I figured, itâs in plastic, itâs fine. So I reached in and grabbed it.â
As for scheduling concerns, Hutson says thatâs âbased on partner availability and the needs of the store,â and that employees can indeed be sent home when the store is slow, though theyâll be âpaid a minimum number of hours.â But, Hutson continues, âmost of our store partners work at Starbucks because they want to work part time. They appreciate the flexibility and the fact that theyâre still able to take advantage of the benefits we offer.â
Still, those benefits are cold comfort to low-wage workers. âIn every low-wage job that I have worked, the health insurance has been offered more as a novelty," says Subway worker Caroline Durocher, one of the strike organizers trying to recruit baristas. "Because it's too expensive for anyone to afford. Itâs more so they can say they offer it." Loptmann was paying for health insurance, but that only made it harder to afford other thingsâlike food.
He says he'll be supporting the striking works this Thursday as he looks for a new job.
What does Starbucks think of the upcoming protests? âWe support the intent of various efforts to ensure that working Americans earn a decent and competitive wage,â says Starbucks' Hutson. At the same time, he acknowledges that raising the minimum wage would have âpotential impact to businesses."