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(Trends Wide) — Workers at some 150 unionized Starbucks stores in the United States went on strike Friday over a dispute over the chain’s policy for LGBTQ+ Pride Month-related decorations on the premises.
Starbucks Workers United, the union representing organized stores, claimed that Starbucks restricted decorations celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride Month in some places, demonstrating “hypocritical treatment of LGBTQIA+ workers.” Starbucks strongly denied this claim.
Some 3,500 employees “will be on strike over the course of the next week,” Starbucks Workers United posted in a tweet.
Store leaders can decorate them however they like for Pride Month and other celebrations, as long as those decorations meet safety guidelines, according to the company. Starbucks said it is not aware of any company-owned stores that have banned Pride decorations.
The company also noted that many stores shared their Pride decorations on social media.
“We unwaveringly support the LGBTQIA+ community. There have been no changes to any policy on this matter and we continue to encourage our store leaders to celebrate with their communities, including for US Pride Month in June,” a Starbucks spokesperson said, adding: “We are deeply concerned by the false information being spread.”
However the union responded on Twitter that the “company’s own responses have not been consistent” based on internal documents and testimony from store managers.
“Starbucks empowers local leaders to ‘find ways to celebrate.’ These leaders are the same ones who issue many of the Pride bans,” the union explained, pointing to an article that said Pride decorations were banned at about 100 locations. in Oklahoma, Arkansas. and Missouri. Those places are in some of the most conservative regions of a deeply divided America. Many Starbucks locations across the country did display Pride decorations.
Starbucks Workers United says this is an example of Starbucks caving in to pressure, as Target did when it moved or removed Pride merchandise from some stores. Pride became a political flash point this year, with the right attacking companies for their inclusive policies.
But even if some managers removed their decorations for Pride Month, the company hasn’t changed any privacy policy. merchandising at the corporate level.
The Seattle-based company has a history of progressive employee policies dating back to 1988, when it extended comprehensive health benefits to same-sex couples. In 2013, it added gender reassignment surgery to health coverage and two years later allowed employees to express themselves with a name or nickname that is “consistent with their gender identity or expression,” according to the company.
Even so, Starbucks earned a reputation for cracking down on unionization. The company was recently accused of engaging in “egregious and widespread misconduct” in its dealings with employees involved in efforts to unionize the Buffalo, New York, stores, a National Labor Relations Board judge said in March.
The former CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, was a known opponent of unions.
“I don’t think a union has a place at Starbucks,” Schultz told Trends Wide’s Poppy Harlow. If workers “file a petition to unionize, they have the right to do so. But we as a company are also entitled to say that we have a different view on what is better,” she stated.
