Starbucks union plans strike over Pride decor, labor practices

Thousands of workers at organized Starbucks stores across the nation will stage strikes over the next week, their union said on Friday, a move that comes after workers in some states said management prohibited them from putting up decorations for Pride Month, accusations that the company has said are false.

Starbucks Workers United said employees at more than 150 stores would strike over the company’s labor practices and its “hypocritical treatment of LGBTQIA+ workers.” It was unclear which, if any, Massachusetts locations would participate in the work action.

The union represents about 8,000 of the company’s workers in more than 300 stores.

“Starbucks is scared of the power that their queer partners hold, and they should be,” Moe Mills, who works at a Starbucks location in Richmond Heights, Missouri, said in a statement provided by the union.

The union said that it was striking over the changes to Pride decoration policies, which it argued must be negotiated, as well as the company’s broader response to the organizing campaign, including widespread retaliation against union supporters. The union said in its statement that workers were “demanding that Starbucks negotiate a fair contract with union stores and stop their illegal union-busting campaign.”

The company has consistently denied accusations of illegality.

Starbucks workers in a number of stores across the country said this month that they had been told that no decorations for the annual LGBTQ celebration, such as rainbow flags, were allowed this year, a shift from previous years. In interviews arranged through their union, workers said that the reasons varied.

In central Massachusetts, employees at about a dozen stores said they were told they could decorate their stores for one day — provided a parade or another community celebration was taking place — and only if it was approved by

the regional director, according to the union. Otherwise, workers are restricted to putting up Pride symbols in employee-only areas. In lieu of displaying a rainbow flag, workers are being allowed to wear the same color on the same day to resemble a sort of deconstructed flag, the union said.

Elsewhere in Massachusetts, workers were told there weren’t enough “labor hours” for baristas to decorate, according to the union. In Danbury, Conn., a Pride flag was taken down the day after it went up, employees said, because they were told the store is in an area that is “realigning,” and only official Starbucks-approved decor can be used.

Starbucks, which has roughly 9,300 corporate-owned stores in the United States, has said that decoration policies are often specific to each store. A Starbucks representative said on Friday that there “has been no change to company policy on this matter” and accused the union of spreading false information.

Starbucks workers and the union say that since the unionization campaign began in 2021, the company has more aggressively enforced its dress code and rules governing the material workers can post in stores, as well as other employee conduct, as a way to intimidate and retaliate against union supporters.

“They’re trying to make people feel unwelcome in whatever way possible — through more strict enforcement of the dress code or anything,” said Casey Moore, a union spokesperson. “The Pride decorations are another level of that.”