Starbucks fired seven employees from a Memphis store that had recently filed to unionize on Tuesday. The terminated workers make up almost the entirety of the store’s organizing committee, according to the union.
The company claims that it fired workersFor violating several safety-security policies. Workers at the Poplar and Highland shops claim that many policies were not followed. have never been enforced and that their supposed violations aren’t fireable offenses. Workers also noted that it’s ironic for Starbucks to claim to be concerned about worker safety when the company’s Refusal or refusal to address safety issuesThis is one of the main reasons workers have been organizing.
Starbucks Workers United has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), saying that the firings are retaliation for the workers’ unionizing efforts and are therefore illegal. Labor law prohibits companies fromWorkers are subject to retaliation for exercising their right of organization.
“I was fired by Starbucks today for ‘policies’ that I’ve never heard of before and that I’ve never been written-up about before,” Nikki Taylor, a shift supervisor at Poplar and Highland, said in a statement. “This is a clear attempt by Starbucks to retaliate against those of us who are leading the union effort at our store and scare other partners.”
The union called the firings the company’s “most blatant act of union-busting yet.” According to the union, the company is retaliating against workers who invited media into the store to conduct interviews after hours. In response, management pulled workers off the floor and called them in on their days off to have one-on-one meetings – meetings that union organizers say were meant to pressure workers against unionizing.
“Starbucks is using policies that have never been enforced, such as going behind a counter when a partner is not officially working, to fire workers,” the union said. “Starbucks chose to selectively enforce policies that have not previously been consistently enforced as a subterfuge to fire union leaders.”
According to Starbucks Workers United, the workers who were fired made up around 35 percent of all the employees in the store. Starbucks Workers United has denied that it fired employees for speaking to the media.
Amy Holden is a former manager for Poplar and Highland. told More Perfect Union that the terminations are “definitely union-busting.” “We do not move straight to termination for anything that is not considered egregious,” Holden said. Managers should talk to employees about minor policy violations to rectify the action.
Holden stated that at least one of the policies the company used to fire employees wasn’t a Starbucks policy. Employees were fired entering the back room while they were off the clock – but Holden says employees are allowed to access the room even after clocking out so that they can request time off, access pay stubs or retrieve items they’ve left behind.
EXCLUSIVE! The Memphis Starbucks manager who fired 7 union workers today, claims that the terminations were against Starbucks protocol.
Starbucks’ reasons for firing the workers do not hold up to scrutiny, she explains.
“This is definitely union-busting.” pic.twitter.com/ViokbcBsWS
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) February 8, 2022
Highland and Poplar workers filed a petition for a union election last month. If the NLRB confirms that the policies that workers were fired for aren’t normally enforced or don’t typically lead to terminations, the company may be in legal trouble.
Workers say that the company has been aggressively anti-union, using classic union-busting tactics, such as sending managers into stores to intimidate employees and monitoring their behavior. The company is also leveraging ongoing contract negotiationsTo discourage workers from voting, the union partnered with the first two unionized shops, Elmwood in Buffalo, New York and Genesee Street.
As HuffPost foundThe company has at least 30 lawyers from Littler Mendelson, a notorious union-busting firm, to disrupt the union campaign. You will often spend thousands of dollarsIt is possible to pay millions of dollars, if not billions, to disrupt union drives and offer workers better wages and working conditions. So far, 68 Starbucks stores have filed to unionizeThere are more filings every week.
