As Starbucks (SBUX) workers' efforts to unionize spread across the country, the coffee giant is amping up what many see as an offensive — on Tuesday, seven employees engaged in union activities in Memphis were fired by the company.
The Washington Post reports that the seven Memphis employees had, about a month prior to their termination, given an interview about their desire to form a union to a local TV station.
After employees at two New York locations successfully voted to be represented by Starbucks Workers United this winter, unionization efforts started spreading, domino-style, to places like Arizona and Massachusetts.
Concerns included understaffing, faulty equipment, the inability to collectively bargain and underpayment despite the company bringing in a record $29 billion in revenue in 2021.
What Happened In Memphis?
Starbucks representative Reggie Borges told news outlets that the employees were terminated not because of efforts to unionize.
Borges said they were terminated because they violated the company's safety and security policies by staying inside the store after hours with non-employees. A photo posted by a local reporter shows some of them sitting inside the store with reporters.
But in a video recording posted on Twitter (TWTR), four of the fired employees accused Starbucks of finding minor violations of technicalities to quash union efforts. Some said they were told that they were fired for being seen without a mask or entering through the wrong door.
"Starbucks corporate gave us a whole bunch policies and reasons [...] that were never enforced before to say that they were fireable offenses," former shift supervisor Nikki Taylor says in the video. "It's to silence us and we won't be silenced."
Unionization Push Growing
Throughout the growing unionization campaign, Starbucks has been repeatedly accused of trying to quash mobilizing efforts.
CEO Kevin Johnson once gave an interview in which he said union mobilization went "against having that direct relationship with our partners that has served us so well for decades."
Starbucks, in turn, has repeatedly denied that it engaged in union bashing. By Tuesday night, Starbucks Workers United filed took up the Memphis firing with the National Labor Relations Board.
The charge requests that the seven workers "be reinstated with back pay."
The plight of the workers has been quickly gathering support with the general public; by Wednesday afternoon, a GoFundMe fundraiser to support them with lost wages had raised over $40,000.
"Starbucks has been fighting our union campaign by closing stores, bringing in what they call the 'Buffalo SWAT team' to surveil and disrupt the campaign, and using legal delays to stall and try to prevent workers from voting for months now," New York Starbucks employee Casey Kennedy Moore told TheStreet in December.
