June 23 (UPI) — Thousands of Starbucks workers launched a strike Friday after saying the company has prevented dozens of stores from putting up decorations in observation of LGBTQ Pride Month.
Starbucks Workers United, the union representing the workers, said more than 3,000 workers at over 150 stores will strike demanding “that Starbucks negotiate a fair contract with union stores and stop their illegal union-busting campaign, which has significantly impacted Starbucks’ LGBTQIA+ workforce.”
“Their choice to align themselves with other corporations that have withdrawn their ‘support’ of the queer community in the time we need it most shows that they are not the inclusive company they promote themselves to be,” Moe Mills, a Starbucks shift supervisor in Richmond Heights, Mo., said in a statement. “We’re striking with pride to show the public who Starbucks really is, and to let them know we’re not going anywhere.”
In a statement provided to UPI Starbucks said, “While we respect the right of our partners to engage in lawful union activities without fear of retaliation, inaccurate information shared by Workers United ignores the facts of the matter and distracts from efforts to move the good faith bargaining process forward.”
On collective bargaining with Starbucks Workers United, the company said “Starbucks is committed to progress negotiations towards a first contract where union representatives have approached contract bargaining with professionalism and have allowed both parties to discuss proposals.”
Starbucks said the company hopes “our bargaining teams will be afforded the opportunity to discuss the bargaining vision and preliminary proposals presented by Workers United and represented partners during future sessions, ensuring a robust dialogue and productive negotiations related to proposed pillars and other mandatory bargaining subjects.”
Starbucks said last week there has been “no change to any policy” regarding Pride decorations and that local store leaders and employees can make their own decisions within the company’s guidelines.
The union, however, said in a June 13 statement that in dozens of instances, Starbucks had taken down Pride flags in some stores and prevented workers from decorating stores.
It added that the strike also comes in response to Starbucks’ failure to bargain in good faith with its workers, noting that the National Labor Relations Board is currently prosecuting the company over the talks.
“So far, in 15 favorable decisions out of 16, NLRB judges have found that Starbucks committed 161 federal labor law violations, including 19 unlawful discharges,” a Starbucks Workers United statement said. “The federal government is currently prosecuting Starbucks for approximately 75 complaints, encompassing over 200 charges and alleging over 1,300 violations, including 77 discharges. This makes the Coffee Giant one of the worst violators of labor law in modern U.S. history.”
CEO Howard Shultz said in a statement on April 10, 2022, that “The law gives our partners a right to organize, and it also protects the right to work without having a union… I do not believe conflict, division and dissension — which has been a focus of union organizing — benefits Starbucks or our partners.”
Starbucks Workers United has so far organized more than 8,000 workers in 38 states and the District of Columbia.
A U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee report published March 27 concluded that, Starbucks has engaged in “the most significant union-busting campaign in modern history.”
“Starbucks has waged an aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign,” the Senate report said. “That campaign has been directed and led by Howard Schultz, the multi-billionaire CEO and founder of Starbucks. Under Schultz’s leadership, Starbucks has adopted an aggressively anti-union stance that is reflected in Schultz’s public statements, the company’s communications to workers, and its scorched-earth approach to blocking unionization activity.”
Union organizing activity is protected in the United States by the National Labor Relations Act.
A statement on the National Labor Relations Board website says that law makes it clear “that it is the policy of the United States to encourage collective bargaining by protecting workers’ full freedom of association.”
According to the board statement, the NRLA, protects workplace democracy by “providing employees at private-sector workplaces the fundamental right to seek better working conditions and designation of representation without fear of retaliation.”