Starbucks Smackdown: Judge Orders $100,000 In Back Tips To Baristas
Bad news for Starbucks, good news for Starbucks baristas: in the culmination of a 2004 lawsuit filed by a barista in La Jolla, a San Diego judge on Thursday ordered the java-slinging giant to shell out about $106 million in back tips to baristas (plus interest!) that originally went to shift supervisors. The suit went class-action in 2006 allowing as many as 100,000 current and former California baristas to hop onto the bandwagon (California is Starbucks biggest U.S. market with 2,460 stores.)
The individual payouts amount to roughly $1,000 per barista. No word on whether the back tips will be handed down in dimes and quarters. For their part, Starbucks vowed to appeal the ruling, calling it "fundamentally unfair and beyond all common sense and reason."
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