Starbucks Fires Leaders In Memphis Union Organizing Effort

- Nikki Taylor.
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- Daily Kos, Feb. 8, 2022. Ed.

Starbucks ramped up its ongoing anti-union campaign on Tuesday, firing a group of union activists at a Memphis store. The firings happened through the day, hitting seven workers by early afternoon—around one-third of the workforce at the store. Workers seeking to unionize at that Memphis store were part of a powerful More Perfect Union video just last week, with a former manager at the store talking about how she quit in response to pressure to write up one of the worker-activists.

A district manager “made me write up Nikki for things that I did not agree with, but she told me I had to do it or I would lose my job for not doing it,” Amy Holden said. “I did not have any proof of any of the things that Nikki did. I asked for the proof and I was not given the proof.” Holden resigned in response, and her words are particularly interesting now that union organizing committee members are being fired. “I was fired by Starbucks today for ‘policies’ that I’ve never heard of and that I’ve never been written-up about before,” said shift supervisor Nikki Taylor 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. Starbucks will not get away with this—the entire country will be outraged.” SB Workers United said, “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. Starbucks chose to selectively enforce policies, that have not previously been consistently enforced, as a subterfuge to fire union leaders. Many of these workers did not have prior offenses or write-ups.”

A SB spokesman told the NYT's Noam Scheiber that the workers violated company policies in the course of doing media interviews. “Among the violations, Mr. Borges said, were opening a locked door at their store; remaining inside the store without authorization after it had closed; allowing other unauthorized individuals inside the store after it had closed; & allowing unauthorized individuals in parts of the store where access is typically restricted.” As well, “He also wrote that one employee had opened a store safe when the employee was not authorized to do so & that another employee had failed to step in to prevent this violation.” So those are the 2 accounts of what led to the firings.

Here’s some context. Firing is common in union organizing drives, even though it is illegal to fire workers for concerted activity...

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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/2/8/2079259/-Starbucks-fires-leaders-in-Memphis-union-organizing-effort