Ticker: McDonalds prepared for layoffs; Starbucks fires union activist

McDonald’s has closed its U.S. offices through Wednesday and told its corporate staff to work remotely as it prepares to announce a round of layoffs.

In a memo to workers posted on the website TheLayoff.com, the Chicago-based burger giant said it wanted to “ensure the comfort and confidentiality of our people during the notification period” and would hold all notification meetings virtually. It told international corporate staff to follow guidance in their particular regions.

The company said in the memo that the layoffs are intended to make McDonald’s more efficient.

“We have a clear opportunity ahead of us to get faster and more effective at solving problems for our customers and people and to globally scale our successful market innovations at speed,” the company said.

Starbucks fires union activist

Starbucks has fired one of the workers who helped kick off a unionization effort at the company.

Lexi Rizzo was an eight-year Starbucks employee and shift supervisor. She was fired from her store in Buffalo, New York, on Friday.

Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing Starbucks’ workers, said Rizzo was fired after arriving a few minutes late for work. Rizzo was one of the workers who first reached out to labor organizers in 2021 to unionize Starbucks stores. Seattle-based Starbucks opposes the unionization effort.

Starbucks said Monday that Rizzo was fired for “repeated and substantial violations” of its attendance policy, including one instance where she arrived more than three hours late for a shift. Starbucks said it had documented six instances in which Rizzo missed more than four hours of work.