Starbucks Canada managers fight for overtime pay with $50M class action
Despite sometimes working up to 80 hours a week, Starbucks Canada store managers are systematically excluded from overtime pay due to an “unlawful” company policy that mischaracterizes their job, a new class action alleges.
The proposed class action seeks $50 million in damages for store managers who the suit claims are victims of longstanding “systemic misclassification” that unfairly exempts them from overtime pay.
In a statement to the Star, a Starbucks spokesperson said the company would respond to the class action’s allegations “as appropriate in the course of litigation.”
“At Starbucks, we pride ourselves on being a great place for our partners to work,” the statement said. “We have a long legacy of progressive and responsible employment that rewards partners for their contributions, adds to a great work environment and promotes a shared responsibility for individual and company success.”
The suit, filed earlier this week, must now be certified by the courts to proceed as a class action.
Under Ontario law, employees are entitled to time-and-a-half pay after a 44hour work week, but supervisors are not — so long as they only do nonmanagerial tasks on an “irregular or exceptional basis.” This is the exemption that Starbucks relied on to disqualify its store managers from claiming overtime, according to the suit.
But Josh Mandryk, a lawyer at Toronto-based Goldblatt Partners which is leading the class action, said store managers regularly do the same work as baristas and other employees — entitling them to the same overtime protections under the law.
“If you drink coffee from Starbucks then chances are you’ve been cashed out and had your drinks made by a store manager,” Mandryk said.
While store managers are allotted 12 hours a week to perform supervisory tasks like scheduling and payroll, the class action says they are also required by Starbucks to work on the shop floor preparing food and drinks, serving customers, washing dishes and cleaning at
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least three days a week.
Trevor Hopman is the suit’s representative plaintiff, and worked as a store manager at three downtown Toronto Starbucks between 2010 and 2017.
While he was scheduled to work 40 hours a week, the suit alleges he routinely worked between 50 and 80 hours weekly — performing the same tasks as baristas on top of his managerial duties.
But Starbucks “failed or refused to provide him compensation as required,” the statement of claim says.
“Although all other store employees ‘clocked-in’ and ‘clocked-out’ for all hours worked, Hopman, as the store manager, was not permitted by the defendant to do so,” the suit says.
Regular Starbucks employees are entitled to overtime pay, but it is company policy to schedule them so their hours rarely exceed provincial overtime thresholds, according to the class action.
By contrast, Hopman regularly worked “additional coverage hours when employees called in sick, quit while still on the schedule, showed up late, or noshowed for their shifts,” sometimes working 12- to 18-hour days, the statement of claim adds.
According to the class action, company policy dictates that store managers perform their nonmanagerial tasks on their location’s busiest days at peak hours.
Hopman said he worked “extremely hard and long hours,” usually performing the same barista duties as other employees — making him a “working manager” entitled to overtime.
But the suit says Starbucks has failed to adequately monitor and record store managers’ hours, “dissuaded” them from reporting hours worked beyond their scheduled shifts and effectively prevented them from “claiming or obtaining compensation for their unpaid hours worked.”
Hopman said he decided to take on the lawsuit to ensure other store managers are “fairly compensated for all of their hours of work.”
Starbucks has 1,000 outlets in Canada, according to the statement of claim. The proposed class action would cover all store managers who work or have worked at Canadian outlets from 2014 onward.
The statement of claim says Starbucks “flagrantly breached” its duty of good faith to store managers “to increase its profits” at their expense.
Geetha Philipupillai, co-counsel at Goldblatt Partners, called misclassification of working managers to exempt them from overtime pay a “systemic problem in the retail industry.”
“We hope this class action sends a strong message to retail employers about the importance of properly classifying their working managers as entitled to overtime pay.”