疫情當下，星巴克們還好嗎

For millions of people, visiting Starbucks is a daily ritual. But these are extraordinary times for one of the world’s most popular brands.

對于數以百萬計的人來說，去星巴克是每天的例行公事。但對于這個世界上最受歡迎的品牌之一來說，此刻是一個非常時期。

The last few weeks have been “very challenging times for all of us,” said Rossann Williams, the executive who oversees the company’s 200,000 workers in the United States. “We’re all learning as we go.”

過去幾周，“對我們所有人來說，都是非常具有挑戰(zhàn)性的時期，”負責管理公司美國20萬名員工的高管羅森·威廉姆斯(Rossann Williams)說。“我們邊走邊學。”

Starbucks has long marketed itself as a social gathering spot — a “third place” between work and home, a symbol of normalcy for millions of people who buy coffee every day. Its bustling cafes are designed to build community and promote interaction between customers and baristas.

一直以來，星巴克把自己定位為一個社交聚會場所——介于工作和家庭之間的“第三個地方”，是數百萬每天購買咖啡者正常生活的象征。它那些熙熙攘攘的咖啡館旨在打造社區(qū)，促進顧客和咖啡師之間的互動。

In recent days, however, that philosophy has come up against the threat of a rapidly spreading pandemic that has made people anxious about gathering in public places and sent shock waves through the global economy.

然而，最近幾天，迅速蔓延的疫情讓人們對聚集在公共場所感到焦慮，并給全球經濟帶來了沖擊，星巴克的這種理念也遇到了沖擊。

Now cafes could start to empty out, as public health authorities urge people to work from home and avoid crowds. For service workers like the baristas at Starbucks, the threat of infection is especially severe.

現(xiàn)在，隨著公共衛(wèi)生部門敦促人們在家工作，避開人群，咖啡館可能會無人問津。對于像星巴克咖啡師這樣的服務人員來說，感染的威脅尤其嚴重。

To reassure the public, Starbucks has prohibited customers from using their own cups and established an intensive cleaning regimen, requiring employees to wash their hands and disinfect “high touch” surfaces every half-hour. Even stricter protocols may lie ahead if the situation worsens, Ms. Williams said, like mandatory gloves and face masks for employees or the removal of chairs and tables. She said stores in the United States could be temporarily closed in extreme cases.

為了讓公眾放心，星巴克禁止顧客使用自己的杯子，并制定了嚴格的清潔制度，要求員工每半小時洗手并對“高接觸”表面消毒。威廉姆斯說，如果情況進一步惡化，未來可能還會出臺更嚴格的規(guī)定，比如強制員工戴手套和口罩，或移除桌椅。她說，在極端情況下，美國的店面可能會暫時關閉。

The outbreak is already hurting Starbucks’ bottom line. Starbucks’ stock price has fallen more than 25 percent over the last month.

疫情已經損害了星巴克的利潤。在過去一個月里，星巴克的股價下跌了超過25%。

The virus’s toll on the company’s workers could also be significant.

該病毒對該公司員工造成的損失可能也是巨大的。

“They’re the ones who are more likely to be exposed, because they’re out in the public, and also more likely to pass it on again,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

“他們是更有可能暴露在病毒之下的人，因為他們面對公眾，而且也更有可能把病毒再次傳播出去，”經濟政策研究所(Economic Policy Institute)高級經濟學家伊莉斯·古爾德(Elise Gould)表示。

Across the industry, they are also less likely to have health insurance or paid sick leave. “It exposes the economic inequality that already exists,” Ms. Gould said.

整個行業(yè)也不太可能有醫(yī)療保險或帶薪病假。“它暴露了已有的經濟不平等，”古爾德說。

On March 5, Starbucks temporarily closed a store near the Seattle Art Museum after an employee tested positive for the virus. The news reached senior leaders at 9 p.m. By 9 a.m. the next morning, the store had been thoroughly sanitized, and it reopened on Monday. All the employees who had worked closely with the person who tested positive were told to stay home for two weeks, with pay.

3月5日，在一名員工的檢測結果呈陽性后，星巴克暫時關閉了西雅圖美術館附近的一家店面。消息在晚上9點傳到了高層領導那里。到第二天早上9點，這家店已經徹底消毒，并于周一重新開張。所有與那名檢測結果呈陽性者有密切接觸的員工都被告知在家休兩周帶薪假。

In its marketing, Starbuck has long highlighted its efforts to promote the well-being of employees, whom the company calls “partners,” such as offering health insurance to part-time workers.

在市場營銷中，星巴克長期以來一直強調其致力于促進員工的福利，例如向兼職員工提供健康保險。該公司將員工稱為“合作伙伴”。

Even while its stores were closed, Starbucks continued to pay the majority of its salaried workers, a group that includes many baristas, according to a recent securities filing.

根據最近的一份證券備案文件，即使星巴克的商店關門，星巴克仍繼續(xù)向包括許多咖啡師在內的大部分付薪員工支付工資。

And on Wednesday, Starbucks told its workers in the United States that it would provide up to two weeks of paid leave to any employee who was infected with the virus or had extended contact with a co-worker or household member who tested positive. (Under its previously established policy, Starbucks allowed employees to accrue an hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked: A barista working 23 hours a week would accumulate about five sick days over a year.)

周三，星巴克對美國員工表示，它將為感染病毒或與檢測結果呈陽性的同事或家屬密切接觸的員工提供長達兩周的帶薪休假。(根據先前制定的政策，星巴克允許員工每工作30個小時就可以累積一小時的病假時間：每周工作23個小時的咖啡師一年可以休5天左右的病假。)

Still, in interviews, Starbucks employees expressed concern that the enhanced safety measures were at odds with on-the-ground realities. While few questioned the wisdom of the new protocols, some said the policies were putting more pressure on staff who already felt overworked.

盡管如此，在采訪中，星巴克員工仍對加強后的安全措施不適于實際情況表示擔憂。盡管很少有人質疑新協(xié)議的合理性，但一些人表示，該政策正給已經超負荷工作的員工帶來更大壓力。

A Seattle-area employee who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the company said it was unrealistic for employees to perform the full cleaning process every 30 minutes when cafes were busy. An Atlanta-area worker who also declined to be named said the cleaning duties had pulled workers away from the counter, creating longer lines and larger crowds that may have inadvertently increased the risk of contagion even as the company tried to defuse it.

一位要求匿名的西雅圖地區(qū)員工說，在咖啡館繁忙時，員工每30分鐘執(zhí)行一次完整的消毒過程是不現(xiàn)實的。一位不愿透露姓名的亞特蘭大地區(qū)員工說，清潔工作使員工暫停服務，造成了更多的顧客排更長的隊，即使公司試圖消殺病毒，也可能無意中增加了傳染的風險。

Underlying the strain at Starbucks is the company’s so-called lean staffing model, a common feature of retail and fast-food outlets in which managers seek to minimize the number of workers assigned to each store, often with the help of software that predicts customer traffic. The goal is typically to have just enough workers to cover demand, and no more, leaving little margin for error.

該公司所謂的精益人員配置模式是造成星巴克壓力的根本原因，該模式常見于零售和快餐店，管理人員通常借助可預測客戶流量的軟件，設法最大程度地減少分配給每家店鋪的員工數量。其目標通常是計算出剛好能滿足需求的員工數量，從而不再多雇人，誤差幅度很小。

Like many other companies, Starbucks gives managers strict “labor budgets,” and over the years some have said they were disciplined for exceeding them.

與許多公司一樣，星巴克為經理們提供了嚴格的“勞動力預算”，多年來，總有人說他們因超出預算而受到處分。

“The lean model can be quite unforgiving,” said Saravanan Kesavan, a retail expert at the University of North Carolina. “Store managers are going to have a lot more difficulty managing absenteeism in stores that employ lean staffing compared to other stores that do not.”

“精益模式可能會過于嚴格，”北卡羅萊納大學的零售專家薩拉瓦南·科薩萬(Saravanan Kesavan)表示：“相比其他門店，那些采用精益人員配置的門店經理在缺勤管理上面臨更多困難。”

The fast-food and retail industries have long known that they are vulnerable to epidemics. But they have sometimes played down the threat.

長期以來，快餐和零售行業(yè)深知它們易受流行病影響。但是他們有時也會淡化威脅。

Not long after the SARS outbreak in 2003, the possibility of a pandemic was the first threat to its business that Starbucks listed in the “risk factors” section of its 2005 annual report. In its most recent annual filing, however, the company placed pandemic risk far lower on the list, after weakening economic conditions, changing consumer tastes, rising real estate costs, and natural or man-made disasters.

在2003年SARS暴發(fā)后不久，星巴克在其2005年度報告的“風險因素”部分，排在首位的威脅是發(fā)生大流行病的可能。然而，該公司在其最新的年度報告中，將大流行風險放在了靠后的位置，排在經濟狀況疲軟、消費者口味改變、房地產成本上漲以及自然或人為災難之后。

Across the service industry, many employees face pressure to work even when they are sick. More than half of people who work at hotels and in food service do not receive paid sick leave, according to the Department of Labor. That is also true of about one-third of workers in the retail industry.

在整個服務行業(yè)，許多員工即使生病也面臨工作壓力。勞工部稱，超過一半的在旅館和餐飲服務業(yè)的員工沒有帶薪病假。零售業(yè)中，約三分之一的員工也是如此。

Two McDonald’s workers said in interviews that they almost always worked when sick for fear of missing a paycheck. “We have no choice,” said Fran Marion, a McDonald’s worker in Kansas City, Mo. “If I’m sick, call off, that means I have to miss half my rent, putting food on the table for my kids.”

麥當勞的兩名員工在接受采訪時說，他們生病時也幾乎總是工作，因為擔心沒有工資。“我們別無選擇，”位于密蘇里州堪薩斯城的麥當勞員工弗蘭·馬里昂(Fran Marion)說，“如果我生了病，請了假，這意味著我不得不失去一半的房租錢，無法將食物擺上孩子的餐桌。”