Thousands of workers in organized Starbucks stores across the country will go on strike over the coming week, their union said Friday, after workers in some states said management banned them from putting up decorations for Pride Month.
The company denied the allegations and issued a statement stating that it “has been and will continue to be at the forefront of supporting the LGBTQIA2+ community.”
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 employees at a number of stores this month said 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 given varied.
Starbucks, which has about 9,300 of its own stores in the United States, says decoration policies are often specific to each store.
A Starbucks official involved in the response to the union campaign said the company decided last year, after the union campaign began to spread across the country, to be more aggressive in enforcing dress codes and policies about what is in stores. may be posted. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, attributed the change to concerns that many shops would otherwise be flooded with union paraphernalia.
But a Starbucks spokeswoman Friday called the claim “false,” saying there had been no change in the company’s guidelines regarding displays and decorations in the past nine years.
A company statement – naming Laxman Narasimhan, the CEO, and Sara Trilling, Executive Vice President and President, North America – did not address store-by-store practices. But it noted that for Pride Month, the rainbow flag flew over the company’s Seattle headquarters and in thousands of Starbucks stores.
“We continue to encourage our store leaders to celebrate with their communities, including for US Pride Month in June,” the company said.
Casey Moore, a spokeswoman for the union, mocked the company’s statement, saying: “Instead of apologizing to senior management across the country for making the decision not to allow Pride awards, they have doubled down on that it didn’t happen.”
In addition to its complaints about the Pride awards issue, the union said it was conspicuous about 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 and union employees say rules on employee conduct have been applied more aggressively as a way to intimidate and retaliate against union supporters.
“They’re trying to make people feel unwelcome in any way they can – by stricter enforcement of the dress code or something,” said Ms Moore, the union’s spokeswoman. “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 presence 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 employees who are union members have staged strikes in recent months over what they say are the company’s delaying tactics at the bargaining 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 failing to negotiate in good faith in more than 100 stores. It was one of dozens of complaints related to labor law violations the board has issued 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.
