Caribou Coffee Corporation Provide Emergency Paid Leave

We demand that CEO John Butcher, the Caribou Coffee Company and JAB Holding Company:

Covid-Related Demands:

- $3/hour hazard pay rate increase for all shop-based workers until September, 2020
This hazard pay increase should be backdated to April 7th, when workers demanded this!

- Close all stores until it is safe to go back to work. During closures, fully paid leave for all shop-based staff affected by closures.
Safe stores require at minimum:
- Fully stocked PPE for all shop-based workers
- Fully stocked cleaning and sanitizing supplies for every store
- Contact-less service

- Immediate cease of any intimidation tactics against workers that are organizing together and protected by law and a company-wide communication of an anti-retaliation policy.

Long-Term/Structural Changes Towards a Better Company

- $15 minimum wage across the company for all front-line workers and immediate implementation of credit-card and cash tipping for in-store and online and app-based orders.

- Wage transparency across the company to ensure workers are being paid equitably.
Transparent company-wide hiring wages for each position (Team Member, MOD, ASM, GM) based on a $15/hr company-wide minimum wage.

- Company-wide paid sick & safe time policy for ALL workers.
For every 20 hours worked, workers should earn 1 hour of paid sick and safe time.
Separate PTO and Sick Time on employee benefits documentation
Sick Time continued to be accrued after 2 years of working at Caribou in addition to PTO accrual.

- 6-week Paid Family Leave policy available to all workers across the company.

- PTO for all workers, as well as equity and transparency around PTO for all employees
Removal of full time employee status requirement (working 35 hours for at least 6 months and then continuing to work 35 hours each week) in order to accrue PTO
For every 20 hours worked, one hour of PTO is accrued in addition to paid sick & safe time.

-The same healthcare benefits offered to Caribou Corporate Employees should be offered to all front-line workers!

We, the employees of Caribou Coffee, believe that it is irresponsible to our customers and to your employees to require workers, especially imuno-compromised and vulnerable workers, to report to work as the spread of the coronavirus continues.

Furthermore, Minnesota’s Governor Walz has declared a State of Emergency due to COVID-19 for the safety and well being of all Minnesotans. As this crisis grows, more and more workers are being asked to work from home, or have to miss work for reasons related to the pandemic. Poor communities of color and other marginalized communities are the driving force in our state’s economy, yet they will face the brunt of this crisis, as most of low-wage jobs cannot be done remotely and poverty wages do not allow for families to establish emergency savings. We are concerned about the health and well being of our communities during this time.

In order to ensure that our communities can pay for food, medical needs and other basic needs, we are calling on the State of Minnesota to enact a policy for 15 days of Emergency Paid Time Off paid for by employers and provided to all workers, no exceptions, who have to miss work (including retroactively covering days that have already been lost) due to the coronavirus pandemic for any reason, be it for a temporary job shut down, personally getting sick, caring for kids when schools shut down, or any other related reason. The 15 days should be in addition to whatever benefits workers already have in their workplace. To avoid impacting small businesses, we are calling on the state to implement a separate tax on the largest businesses in the state including Amazon, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Target, Ecolab and others, and small to medium sized businesses can apply for a tax credit equal to 100% of the paid sick leave benefit they have paid out. If workers have to miss more than 15 days for any reason related to the crisis, they should be able to access unemployment insurance benefits immediately without counting the benefit against the employer's experience rating, and with a moratorium on employer challenges during the pandemic.

Finally, we remind you that it is against federal law to retaliate against an employee for making a discrimination or wage-related complaint. This includes discharging, penalizing, disciplining or in any other manner discriminating against workers for this activity. 29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3).