Starbucks workers at an Ithaca, New York, store claim their location is being shut down in retaliation for their union activism.

The worker committee said it is filing an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that Starbucks is making a "clear attempt to scare workers across the country," a press release from the Starbucks Workers United said.

On Friday, Starbucks informed employees in its College Avenue location near Cornell University that the store will close in one week, according to the press release.

In April, all three Starbucks locations in Ithaca voted to unionize, making Ithaca the company's first fully unionized city within the United States, according to the union press release.

On April 16, workers at the College Avenue store went on strike, claiming "unsafe working conditions" due to a "waste emergency" caused by an overflowing grease trap, the union said.

Nadia Vitek, a barista at the soon-to-be-closed location, claimed the grease trap had been an ongoing problem creating an "awful" smell that even customers could notice. They said there was oil all over the shop's floor.

"Now they're closing the store and the only concrete reason that they're giving us is the grease trap," Vitek said. "And it feels blatant when you connect the dots."

On Friday, the store's district manager held a meeting with the staff on Microsoft Teams to announce the store closure, Vitek said.

"I was shaking as I was hearing them say the news," Vitek said. "They didn't even explain in the call that it was a permanent closure. I got that in an email from the anti-union lawyer that Starbucks has."

A company spokesperson said Starbucks opens and closes stores as part of its regular operations. They did not comment on specific reasons for the Ithaca closure or answer any questions beyond the statement.

"Our local, regional and national leaders have been working with humility, deep care and urgency to create the kind of store environment that partners and customers expect of Starbucks," the Starbucks spokesperson said. "Our goal is to ensure that every partner is supported in their individual situation and we have immediate opportunities available in the market."

But some Starbucks workers at the location are concerned about having enough hours, as the other stores in the area are already struggling, Vitek said.

"Starbucks is continuing a divide-and conquer-strategy. But, you know, even though we're grieving, we're all ready to fight," Vitek said.

Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union which is supporting the Starbucks employees, has also filed dozens of complaints against the coffee giant.

"It's a violation of federal labor law to close a store because workers exercised their legal rights," Ian Hayes, an attorney for Starbucks Workers United wrote in a statement to CNN Business. "We ... have no doubt the NLRB will prosecute the company for this illegal union busting, and justice will be done."

LOS ANGELES —

Unionized Hollywood actors on the verge of a strike have agreed to allow a last-minute intervention from federal mediators but say they doubt a deal will be reached by a negotiation deadline late Wednesday.

"We are committed to the negotiating process and will explore and exhaust every possible opportunity to make a deal, however we are not confident that the employers have any intention of bargaining toward an agreement," the Screen Actors Guild -American Federation of Radio and Television Artists said in a statement Tuesday night.

Video above: A Writers Guild of America member weighs in on the possibility of an actor's strike

The actors could join the already striking Writers Guild of America and grind the already slowed production process to a halt if no agreement is reached with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The sides agreed to an extension before the original contract expiration date on June 30, resetting it to Wednesday at 11:59 p.m.

Growing pessimism surrounding the talks seemed to turn to open hostility when SAG-AFTRA released a statement Tuesday night.

It came in response to a report in Variety that a group of Hollywood CEOs had been the force behind the request for mediation, which the union said was leaked before its negotiators were informed of the request.

The AMPTP declined comment through a representative. It's not clear whether federal mediators have agreed to take part, but such an intervention would presumably require more time than the hours left on the contract.

"The AMPTP has abused our trust and damaged the respect we have for them in this process," the SAG-AFTRA statement said. "We will not be manipulated by this cynical ploy to engineer an extension when the companies have had more than enough time to make a fair deal."

Issues on the table in the talks include residual pay and the threat of unregulated use of artificial intelligence.

The Maine Warden Dive Team says a man from Hope, Maine, drowned while trying to rescue his daughters.Officials say 46-year-old Henry Brooks was with his family on Saturday at Ayer Park in Union, which is in Knox County. Brooks was watching his 12- and 13-year-old daughters swimming in the water when one of the girls fell into the deeper water, where a river enters a pond. The other daughter tried to rescue her and fell into the deeper water, and they were both swept out by the currents of the even deeper portion of the pond.Officials say Brooks and his 27-year-old son tried to save the girls. Brooks' son was able to get his sisters to a nearby dock, but when he looked back for his father, he could not find him.Game Wardens, Union Fire and Rescue and the Knox County Sheriff's Office were called to help in the search. A dive team was able to find Brooks a few hours later, about 50 feet from shore, in 7 feet of water, not far from the dock where the girls were rescued.Brooks' daughters and son were brought to PenBay Medical Center for observation.

The Los Angeles Unified School District and union leaders said Friday they reached a deal on a new contract for workers after a strike that shut down the nation’s second-largest school system for three days.The agreement includes a pay raise for workers such as bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers, special education assistants and other support staff. Union leaders from Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union say that will raise the average pay for those workers significantly.The deal must still be voted on by the full union.The roughly 30,000 workers represented by the union walked off the job from Tuesday to Thursday amid stalled contract talks. Classes resumed Friday.District superintendent Alberto Carvalho, SEIU Local 99 Executive Director Max Arias and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced the deal together.Members of United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing 35,000 educators, counselors and other staff, joined the picket lines in solidarity.

More New York state Starbucks locations are now set to vote to decide if workers there want to unionize. Many see the effort as having the ability to possibly pick up steam in other parts of the country.

As Bloomberg reported, Nancy Wilson, an acting regional director of the National Labor Relations Board ordered ballots be sent out to Starbucks employees by Jan. 31, and be returned by Feb. 22. Employees at the three additional stores will vote to decide if they would like to join Workers United which is affiliated with Service Employees International Union which won elections recently at two other Starbucks sites in Buffalo.

So far, only two out of 9,000 of Starbuck's corporate-run locations are unionized, which comprises over 230,000 employees, the New York Times reported.

Reggie Borges, a spokesperson for Starbucks was quoted in the Times using a little different language, saying that the company was not anti-union, but instead was “pro-partner,” with its employees. Borges says that the company has historically listened to its workers' feedback and made changes that make unionizing unnecessary.

In early January, unionized Starbucks employees in upstate New York staged a walkout citing fears over COVID-19 safety amid a surge of virus cases. As the Associated Press reported, six of those employees formed a picket line outside of one of the stores in Buffalo causing it to decide to close for the day, after around a third of the staff did not report to work because of safety fears.

Borges said that Starbucks had met and exceeded CDC and expert guidelines and offered vaccine and isolation pay to employees.

“Over and above that, all leaders are empowered to make whatever changes make sense for their neighborhood, which includes shortening store hours or moving to 100% takeout only, which is the case in Buffalo,” Borges said.

Starbucks workers at various cities across the U.S., in cities including Knoxville, Tenn., Tallahassee, Fla., Seattle, Chicago, Boston and Denver, have reportedly been seeking to follow the model of Buffalo in seeking to vote to organize unions, according to the New York Times.

In a 2006 statement on Starbucks' corporate website, the company addresses its long-held perspective on unionizing writing, "While Starbucks respects the free choice of our partners, we firmly believe that our work environment, coupled with our outstanding compensation and benefits, make unions unnecessary at Starbucks. We respect our partners’ right to organize, but believe that they would not find it necessary given our pro-partner environment." 

John Logan, a labor studies professor at San Francisco State University told the New York Times that unionizing has traditionally been effective when aimed at companies with a small number of large workplaces, as striking at one of less than 20 large factories can cause a disruption. But, striking at one or a few out of 9,000 Starbucks stores across the country would likely make little to no difference to the profits of a company as massive as Starbucks.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Once a symbol of American counterculture, cannabis is now a path to the American dream.

“We want anybody to be comfortable coming in here. We wanted to sort of break the stigma of the trap shop and really move more towards, anybody can come and be comfortable here and not feel like they're in a weed shop," says Breton Peace, co-owner and general counsel for March and Ash.

The San Diego-based cannabis dispensary opened its doors three years ago, the shelves lined with carefully curated products in sleek packaging.

“It’s wild. The company itself is a start-up. You have the normal ups and downs and challenges of being a new company," said Peace. “And then being in a new industry, the industry itself is a start-up."

Dispensaries like March and Ash show how far the industry’s come.

"We have banking now, but when we first opened, we had to line up 100 envelopes on the table twice a month."

They've since opened four locations and employ more than 350 workers. Four additional locations are also in the works.

"There's a lot of cannabis workers who believe in the product. They believe in the industry. A lot of well-educated workers that could be doing a lot of different things," said Peace.

He says more than a job, they're looking to grow careers in the industry.

"You’ve got to look behind the walls. In March and Ash, if you were to walk in the store, you have reception, security, concierge, fulfillment, delivery. But behind that, you have marketing, you have accounting, you have legal," said Peace. “It’s everything. It’s its own industry that has to run as a business."

Dispensary workers at March and Ash recently formed a union with UFCW Local 135, seeking job security, benefits, and legitimacy for their industry.

“Some people have family members who don't want them in the industry, but now it's saying, not only do I work for a company that people respect, March and Ash, but I work for a union," said Peace.

Local 135 represents workers in various industries, including grocery, retail, health care, casinos, and cannabis.

But the years-long process came with unique challenges, says Peace.

“It was square peg, round hole. They [union representatives] were taking models from like the grocery industry and just assuming cannabis workers would fit into that model. We have great respect for both industries, but cannabis is different," said Peace.

While Peace says he and his co-owners remained neutral throughout the process, they took time to build a relationship with the union in hopes of reaching an agreement.

“We talked openly about the industry, the problems, the upside, and what do the workers want. And we were able to sort of negotiate in that kind of dynamic," said Peace.

Maribel McKinze, union organizer and political director, negotiated on behalf of March and Ash workers.

“We were able to put committees together, groups from each location, asking them, 'what are some things that you would want to see on your contract?'" said McKinze.

She says child care was at the top of the list.

“Some of the things workers brought to our attention during COVID-19: there’s a lot of single parents," said McKinze.

Peace says this was a problem that management wanted to help solve.

"We have a lot of single-parent and co-parent arrangements in our workforce. We know that because early on, in custody disputes, one side would often use the fact that the other was in the cannabis industry to try and gain leverage in court. We would have to go as ownership and sort of destigmatize who we are in court and tell the judge this is a great employee with a great career, and we’re going to stand behind them," said Peace.

They've created a reimbursement fund for both child care and education.

“Child care was important. We think we found a nice way to not only solve it but route that economic benefit locally," said Peace. “As an employer, it’s a great investment. The issues and scheduling starts to even out."

The agreement also establishes an equity growth account to reinvest in workers, from cash bonuses to retirement programs.

"Traditional 401(K)s, like the unions, aren’t open to our workers because of cannabis," said Peace.

The contract also includes wage increases and paid time off for vacations, holidays, jury duty, and bereavement leave.

Union leaders say the contract sets the gold standard in the unionized cannabis industry and will serve as a model for future negotiations.

“We hope other employers will sit down and not be afraid of this. You don’t have to agree. You can ultimately disagree and not get to an agreement, but for us, it takes a big unknown off the table," said Peace.

He encourages owners to be transparent throughout the process and think outside the box.

"Don't take a model that somebody’s used for 50 years and say I’m going to use that," said Peace. "Be willing to tell the union we’re going to break that apart, and then do the hard work of creating something new.”