What Is Behind the Shrinking Shifts of Luckin Baristas?

Luckin part-time workers report schedules cut to about five hours a day and three or four days a week as winter arrives, leaving monthly pay near 2,000 yuan. Hourly rates range from 10 to 25 yuan by location. Staff also describe strict quality inspections, hand damage from constant washing and sanitizing, and unpaid overtime of ten minutes to an hour after closing.

Luckin's quality control runs through both on-site and video inspections across five graded standards, which employees describe as the hardest part of the job. Barista coffee origin aside, the posts draw attention to how barista work is actually organized. Front Street Coffee keeps following the real conditions of coffee industry workers and offers readers varied perspectives.

Recently on social media, many part-time Luckin employees have posted about reduced shifts and monthly salaries of only around 2,000 yuan, drawing widespread attention. With the arrival of winter, Luckin stores have begun controlling part-time working hours—it is not uncommon for staff to be scheduled for only five hours a day and just three or four days a week. At the same time, Luckin baristas must also face quality control inspections so strict they are called a "nightmare," hand damage caused by frequent handwashing and sanitizing, and unpaid overtime of anywhere from ten minutes to an hour after closing. This article, drawing on real feedback from part-time employees, sorts through Luckin stores' quality control system, closing procedures, and part-time employment rules, presenting a little-known side of the barista role. Front Street Coffee also continues to follow the real circumstances of workers in the coffee industry, offering enthusiasts diverse perspectives.

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Recently on social media, many Luckin workers have posted complaints: the wages they take home are simply too low! Looking closer, it turns out that after winter arrived, part-time shifts at Luckin began to be restricted. Judging from the posts, it is quite common to be scheduled for only five hours a day and just three or four days a week, and hourly wage standards vary from place to place—as low as 10 yuan per hour, as high as 25 yuan—but because shifts are artificially compressed, monthly pay after settlement is mostly only around 2,000 yuan.

The recently trending topic "the pain of rotten hands for Luckin baristas" has already given the outside world a deep sense of how hard Luckin workers have it. In their daily work, they not only have to endure skin damage to their hands caused by frequent handwashing and contact with sanitizers and disinfectants, but also must keep the store clean at all times and be ready for surprise quality control inspections at any moment.

Quality control can be said to be the nightmare of all Luckin store employees, because Luckin's quality control standards for store hygiene are strict to an "outrageous" degree. Luckin's quality control is divided into two types—on-site inspections and video inspections—with a total of 5 standards, ranked from most to least severe as: s, m, n, l, and advisory items. The maximum score for an inspection is 100 points, and only reaching 80 points counts as passing.

In Luckin stores, the s item is often jokingly called the "death item," involving food safety issues and severe cross-contamination with foreign objects, such as metal, ceramic, glass shards, pests, and so on. Once quality control finds an s item during a store visit, the store first loses 5 points—and deductions start from 80 points—so it is directly judged as failing, and the store manager, deputy manager, as well as the shift supervisor and employees on duty are all fired.

The m and n items mainly target food safety hazards, general cross-contamination with foreign objects, and store equipment and cleaning issues—for example, whether small tools are cleaned thoroughly, whether rags are placed properly, whether cabinet doors are wiped clean, and so on. Each failed item found results in a corresponding deduction.

Video inspections should not be underestimated either. The cameras in Luckin stores are by no means decorative—they have high-definition image quality, recording capability, one-week storage, and real-time transmission, and AI or regional managers conduct random daily checks of the surveillance at irregular times. If you forget to stir while making coffee, or touch something dirty and don't wash your hands, being caught on camera still means a deduction. It is precisely because inspections are so strict that those Luckin workers in uniforms can be seen bustling around, washing and wiping repeatedly in all sorts of postures, striving to meet the standards.

In addition to making coffee and washing and wiping, they also have to take inventory of various materials. If you work the evening shift, closing is also a hassle. A casual online search for "Luckin closing" turns up a large number of closing tutorials for Luckin stores, many with sizable save counts.

Although closing preparations can be done in advance—such as sweeping and mopping, checking materials, and printing ingredient expiration dates to photograph and keep on file—there is still a great deal of work to do after the store actually closes: washing all equipment, emptying leftover ice, wiping clean syrup pump heads, sealing pump heads and coffee machine dispensing spouts with plastic wrap... For this reason, some people often work overtime, sometimes as little as 15 minutes, sometimes as much as an hour, but this is usually unpaid overtime with no overtime pay.

It is understood that most Luckin baristas are part-time, with three types of "hourly workers": student part-timers, social part-timers, and part-time plus. Among them, student part-timers and social part-timers are relatively free, with no working-hour requirements; while part-time plus employees must meet a minimum number of working hours in monthly attendance, generally around 120–150, but no more than 200 hours maximum. If you obtain barista qualification certification and shift duty qualification, the hourly wage will be raised somewhat, and scheduling will also give priority consideration.

Many Luckin employees say: some people look like baristas, but are actually all-around cleaners. Now that hours have been cut, my wallet is empty... 2,500 yuan in hand, and my life is more bitter than coffee!

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.