For Kansas City Starbucks workers, ‘lifesaving’ benefits are on the bargaining table

For Starbucks baristas — many of them young and queer — it used to be a point of pride to work for a company with a reputation for taking care of its employees. But some employees say the company's response to their unionization efforts prove otherwise.
When Maddie Doran learned she was at risk of losing her health insurance as an employee of Starbucks, she says she was terrified.

“Oh, it ruined me, I mean, I suffer from a panic disorder so any little thing that spikes my anxiety makes it go through the roof,” Doran says.

Doran was an employee at the Starbucks on 75th Street in Overland Park. Like many Starbucks workers across the country, she was drawn to the job's flexibility and health benefits — and because she is transgender, that insurance was especially important.

But when she and her colleagues announced they wanted to form a union, the company threatened to take those benefits away.