Greater than 1,000 Starbucks baristas go on strike to protest new gown code

Greater than 1,000 Starbucks baristas at 75 U.S. shops have gone on strike since Sunday to protest a new firm gown code, a union representing the espresso big’s staff stated Wednesday.

Starbucks put new limits beginning Monday on what its baristas can put on beneath their inexperienced aprons. The gown code requires staff at company-operated and licensed shops within the U.S. and Canada to put on a stable black shirt and khaki, black or blue denim bottoms.

Below the earlier gown code, baristas might put on a broader vary of darkish colours and patterned shirts. Starbucks stated the brand new guidelines would make its inexperienced aprons stand out and create a way of familiarity for patrons because it tries to ascertain a hotter, extra welcoming feeling in its shops.

However Starbucks Employees United, the union that represents staff at 570 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-owned U.S. shops, stated the gown code needs to be topic to collective bargaining.

“Starbucks has misplaced its manner. As an alternative of listening to baristas who make the Starbucks expertise what it’s, they’re targeted on all of the improper issues, like implementing a restrictive new gown code,” stated Paige Summers, a Starbucks shift supervisor from Hanover, Maryland. “Prospects don’t care what coloration our garments are once they’re ready half-hour for a latte.”

Summers and others additionally criticized the corporate for promoting types of Starbucks-branded clothes that staff now not are allowed to put on to work on an inside web site. Starbucks stated it will give two free black T-shirts to every worker when it introduced the brand new gown code.

Starbucks stated Wednesday that the strike was having a restricted affect on its 10,000 company-operated U.S. shops. By the union’s personal rely, lower than 1% of Starbucks staff are collaborating within the strikes, and in some circumstances the strikes closed shops for lower than an hour, the corporate stated.

“It will be extra productive if the union would put the identical effort into coming again to the desk that they’re placing into protesting carrying black shirts to work,” Starbucks stated in an announcement. “Greater than 99% of our shops are open at this time serving prospects — and have been all week.”

Starbucks Employees United has been unionizing U.S. shops since 2021. Starbucks and the union have but to succeed in a contract settlement, regardless of agreeing to return to the bargaining desk in February 2024.

The union stated this week that it filed a criticism with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board alleging Starbucks’ failure to discount over the brand new gown code.