Media that empowers working people – that's how we build a More Perfect Union.

Don't Miss a Video!

Access our exclusive reporting and rapid response actions directly in your inbox, so you don’t miss a beat in the fight for working people nationwide.

Be a part of a community backing up independent journalism with action.

Ideas

Have a story to tell or idea to share?
Email [email protected]
© 2021 More Perfect Union Action

Together we can build power for working people.

We’re asking questions that really matter, and telling the stories of people who really need to be seen and heard.

You can support our work by donating today.

Amount

Make It Monthly

Don't Miss a Video!

Access our exclusive reporting and rapid response actions directly in your inbox, so you don’t miss a beat in the fight for working people nationwide.

Be a part of a community backing up independent journalism with action.

Starbucks Managers Charged With Threatening Employees, Obsessing Over Dress Codes In New Labor Complaint

By Jordan Zakarin

In a federal complaint, Starbucks workers in Santa Cruz, CA, say their managers are carrying out a rash of illegal union-busting tactics, including threatening employees that they won’t be able to work at other Starbucks locations if they unionize, and retaliating against pro-union employees by selectively enforcing dress codes.

“It’s a lot of rules they’d never talked about before, like having a clean apron — our aprons get coffee, mocha, everything on them,” Joseph Thompson, a shift supervisor and union leader at the Ocean Street store in Santa Cruz, tells More Perfect Union. “It’s mostly the union leaders [that get reprimanded]. I specifically have gotten talked to about it several times.”

After years of encouraging workers to wear buttons and pins on their aprons, Starbucks has forbidden workers from wearing ones adorned with the Starbucks Workers United logo. The company’s rulebook only bans buttons that “advocate a political, religious or personal issue.” Thompson says managers forced him to take the union sticker off of a tip jar, as well.

Sudden dress code enforcement has been an issue in unionizing Starbucks locations across the country. One union leader in Colorado told More Perfect Union that workers at her store have taken to stashing shirts in their back break room in case management begins arbitrarily picking at their clothing on any given day.

Starbucks Workers United filed the new Unfair Labor Practices complaints with the NLRB on Tuesday on behalf of unionizing employees at two Starbucks locations in Santa Cruz. They allege that Starbucks management has “interfered with, restrained, and coerced its employees” who are seeking to organize stores on Ocean Street and Mission Street. Workers at those stores filed for a union election on January 21st and 31st, respectively.

The union lays out a number of more specific accusations against Starbucks in the filings, including falsely threatening workers about the consequences of unionizing, a spike in corporate surveillance on workers, and the strict enforcement of a series of rules that had long been disregarded by management.

Other rules besides the dress code are now being strictly enforced for the first time. Workers are not allowed to enter the store on their off hours, nor are they allowed to handle money unless they are the designated handler on duty, a break from their normal operations that slows down their service during fast-paced morning and afternoon shifts. 

Starbucks cited the cash-handling policy when firing seven unionizing workers in Memphis in February. The store’s former manager told More Perfect Union that the firings were unprecedented and “definitely union-busting.”

The Santa Cruz ULP filings come a little more than a week after Starbucks Workers United filed a massive Unfair Labor Practices complaint against the company over deep cuts in hours that were crippling workers’ incomes and putting their benefits in jeopardy. Thompson says the same thing is happening in his store.

“I’m living paycheck to paycheck and I can’t afford having my hours cut,” Thompson says. “I’m cutting into my savings. A lot of the partners here are feeling that.”

Neither Santa Cruz store has received an election date from the NLRB, which has yet to decide on an objection filed by Starbucks over the size of their bargaining unit. The company has been filing these appeals each time organizing workers seek an election. While the NLRB has ruled against Starbucks each time and recently set a precedent meant to speed up the process, Santa Cruz’s election petition was filed before the agency’s decision was made.

There are now more than 150 Starbucks stores seeking to unionize with Starbucks Workers United, spread out across 27 states.

Related Stories

Map: Where Are Starbucks Workers Unionizing?
Read More
Starbucks Workers United
Poll: Most Starbucks Customers Want Starbucks Workers To Unionize
Read More

The Latest

YouTube Thumbnail
What Scorpion Venom Has To Do With Amazon’s Monopoly
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Our Camera Footage Got Raided. You Won’t Believe Why.
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Michigan’s Bold New Solution to High Drug Prices
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Why U.S. Hospitals Are Closing At An Alarming Rate
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
We Went to the Most Unequal Place in America
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Big Pharma’s 20-Year War On America
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Whistleblower Exposes Health Insurance Companies’ Most Evil Scheme
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
What Disney Doesn’t Want You to Know About Visual Effects
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Inside the Exploitation at Vegas’s MGM and Caesar’s Palace
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
How Four Companies Took Over Our Food Supply
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
How Internet Companies like Verizon And Comcast Abandoned Rural America
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
What Nestle and Abbott Don’t Want You to Know
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Trump Could Lose These Voters. Here’s Why.
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Chicago’s Radical Solution For Broken Tipping Culture
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
The Hidden Reason Manufacturing Jobs Have Disappeared
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
The Truth About Medicare Advantage
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Marvel workers won the first union in visual effects history
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
We Uncovered a Shocking Right-Wing Plot to Eradicate Public Schools
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
The Government’s Radical Solution to Lower Drug Prices
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
This New Deal Jobs Program Is Coming Back
Read More