Last year, Brick Zurek, a shift supervisor at a Starbucks in Chicago's Loop, found working conditions at the store becoming increasingly untenable.
People coming into the store threatened and screamed at baristas. One person, after being served a cup of scalding hot water, poured it on the manager, Zurek said. On top of that, the store was short-staffed, sometimes with just a few baristas tasked with serving a line out the door.
Zurek had read on Twitter and in the news about Starbucks employees in Buffalo, New York, who were pushing to unionize their stores.
