Starbucks Union plans to strike over Pride decor and labor practices
Thousands of workers from organized Starbucks stores across the country will go on strike in the coming week. That’s what their union said on Fridaya move that comes after workers in some states said management banned them from putting up decorations for Pride Month, allegations the company says are false.
Starbucks Workers United said workers at more than 150 stores would strike over the company’s labor practices and its “hypocritical treatment of LGBTQIA+ employees.”
The union represents approximately 8,000 company employees in more than 300 stores.
“Starbucks is afraid of the power their queer partners hold, and they should be,” Moe Mills, who works at a Starbucks location in Richmond Heights, Mo., said in a statement from the union.
The union said it was conspicuous about the changes to Pride decoration policy, which it said needed to be negotiated, as well as the company’s wider response to the organizing campaign, including widespread retaliation against union supporters. The union said in its statement that workers “demand that Starbucks negotiate a fair contract with union stores and stop their illegal campaign to destroy unions.”
The company has consistently denied allegations of illegality.
Starbucks employees at some stores across the country said this month they were told no decorations for the annual LGBTQ celebration, such as rainbow flags, would be allowed this year, a shift from previous years. In interviews organized through their union, workers said the reasons varied.
Starbucks, which has about 9,300 of its own stores in the United States, has said decoration policies are often specific to each store. A Starbucks representative said Friday that “no change has been made to company policy in this area” and accused the union of spreading false information.
Starbucks employees and the union say that since the union campaign began in 2021, the company has more aggressively enforced its dress code and rules governing the materials employees are allowed to post in stores, and other employee behavior as a way to intimidate and retaliate against union supporters.
“They’re trying to make people feel unwelcome in one way or another — stricter dress code enforcement or something,” said Casey Moore, a spokeswoman for the union. “The Pride embellishments are another level of that.”
In a sweeping ruling in March, a federal administrative judge ruled that Starbucks had repeatedly violated labor law by “enforcing stricter dress codes and personal appearance policies in response to union activity.” The judge also ruled that the company had more strictly enforced its attendance policy and its policy on solicitation and distribution of notices in stores.
Starbucks has challenged the findings and is appealing the decision to the National Labor Relations Board in Washington.
Starbucks union workers have staged waves of strikes in recent months over what they say is the company’s delaying tactics at the negotiating table and other anti-union tactics such as retaliation and store closures. The March administrative court ruling also found that Starbucks had illegally laid off seven employees in the Buffalo region last year in response to union activity.
In April, the labor council filed a complaint accusing the company of not negotiating in good faith in more than 100 stores. It was one of dozens of complaints related to labor law violations filed by the board since the union first filed petitions seeking votes at three stores in the Buffalo area in August 2021.
The company has denied the allegations and blames the union for delays in negotiations, citing the union’s insistence on using video chat software to broadcast sessions to employees who are not at the negotiating table.
Howard Schultz, shortly after stepping down as CEO of Starbucks in March, denied allegations of anti-union conduct in testimony before a Senate Judiciary Committee.