 So in December of last year the very first Starbucks store in the company's history successfully formed a union Now it seemed as if to the chagrin of Starbucks corporation That was the beginning of what is now likely a domino effect because as Jackabins Alex Press explains more than 50 Starbucks locations across 19 different states are all opting to form unions now to say that Starbucks is unhappy about this Would be an understatement because they've gone full union buster in an effort to thwart unionization efforts but at one particular store in Tennessee they really are pulling out all the stops and They've decided to now retaliate against the workers who are leading the effort to form a union and they're pretty shameless here So as insider explains Starbucks fired several employees involved in organizing a union in Memphis on Tuesday The company confirmed to insider the coffee giant says the employees were fired for violating security policies Starbucks workers united the union that would represent the Memphis workers if they won an NLRB vote Says that the company fired workers in retaliation for organizing and speaking to the media The union said that the seven workers 35% of the stores total workforce were fired Starbucks says workers violated numerous policies including maintaining a secure work environment and safe security standards by staying in the store After hours and allowing unauthorized people in for the interview pointing to a January 18th tweet from local news outlet Wmca that appears to show a TV crew inside the store now in response to that particular Interview with local media that was cited in this article Starbucks closed that store for four days Now of course they didn't say we're closing the store because we're mad about that interview that you did with local media And we want to punish you they cited COVID as the reason a positive COVID case which That's never been a cause for them to shut down before so they're obviously Retaliating here, but now they're firing workers citing a number of different policies that were violated by the workers more than the ones that we read in that article They claim that another worker access access the safe and they were unauthorized to do that now Of course all of these reasons are completely bogus if you believe Starbucks here is firing them for justifiable reasons And they're not just retaliating against the workers who were specifically leading the cause to unionize the store Then I've got an NFT to sell you but they are very clearly Retaliating here and if these policies were so important then wouldn't the employees Hear about these policies wouldn't they have at some point heard about them? Well, they're claiming they were never told about these policies Nikki Taylor who's helping to organize the union who's also a shift supervisor Spoke about this on Twitter saying being fired for policies that I have never heard of never been talked to about before Never had a write-up about and all of a sudden it's an offense to get fired over this is an outrage They are firing the entire committee Starbucks workers United responded saying Starbucks corporate is currently firing virtually the entire union Leadership in Memphis after they spoke to the media They are repeating history by retaliating against unionizing efforts the arc of Starbucks Union busting is long But it bends toward losing. I sure hope so now they are shamelessly Retaliating against workers these companies who try to break up union efforts and retaliate against workers They never say that that's what they're doing. They always cite some bullshit excuse But it's very clear here that this is a violation So as Brett Wilkins of common dreams explains Starbucks workers United said it would file charges against the company at the National Labor Relations Board Last year an NLRB Administrative judge found that Starbucks had illegally retaliated against two baristas at a Philadelphia Starbucks who sought to unionize According to the NLRB the judge Andrew Golan found that Starbucks closely monitored their public social media activity attempted to gauge employee support for the employees efforts and unlawfully spied on protected conversations One of the employees initiated with co-workers the agency added that Golan concluded Starbucks retaliated against the employees and Discharged them in an attempt to quell the organizing drive now a more perfect union released a really good video where they talk about this union busting effort in particular at this store and they described this as a One of its most aggressive union busting campaigns in the country So this particular location out of all the locations that are trying to unionize they're being extremely harsh here So going back to the store closure that we cited here so after the employees spoke with media they were very angry about that they then closed the store and The employees here in this video that we're about to watch They're gonna kind of explain the situation and what Starbucks has been doing because firing them in retaliation for forming a union or trying to form A union that's just really you know the tip of the iceberg What Starbucks has been trying to do is drive these workers out by punishing them Little by little because they're trying to form a union Take a look because they knew you guys were coming today and because we were having our sit-in and we were speaking to media today They have closed our store They're saying it's because Word got back to the store manager and district manager about that so today our store was closed They said it was because of a positive COVID case, but in history has it We've never closed the store immediately in all day for COVID cases Usually the store manager and district manager tried to find a way to keep that store open for the day But today we were completely closed. It's completely anti union corporate and our district manager and store manager have been trying to Stop our pro-union protests. They've been trying to come in and intimidate us so right now we have an interim store manager and now she's bringing in all of her managers and all of her employees to our store and They're deliberately taking our hours. I went from working 35 to 39 hours a week down to 26 hours and Then I got benefits taken away. We're supposed to get a mark out. It's like a free drink a free food item Those were taken away from us So we weren't even allowed to get markouts like go to other stores and get markouts and stuff and for some people That's a whole meal that they rely on there are some people who go to Starbucks to get that lunch item That they need because they can't afford specific things They've been pulling policies out of a hat that we never heard of to try to intimidate us. It's not really stopping anything It's actually putting fuel to the fire now. It's interesting how she talks about them citing policies to punish workers that they've never heard of and Just days after this video was released They do that to justify firing the leaders conspicuously of this unionization effort now Starbucks didn't want it to come to this of course They would do whatever they need to to thwart this union effort But they would prefer to just drive out these employees because firing them in retaliation reforming a union is a really bad look So they have been trying to basically cut their hours maybe by like 15 minutes So that way they're not working long enough to qualify for a lunch break They've been cutting shifts for employees and some of them have had to get a second jobs Of course they closed the store for four days in response to the interviewer coming into the store and talking with the employees and doing a local Story or doing a story at local media because of it So they've been trying to drive them out so they don't have to fire them But since that effort has seemingly failed now they're at their last resort and they're saying okay fuck it Let's just fire them. We tried to get them to quit But now we're just gonna go ahead and fire them specifically fired the leaders of this unionization effort I mean they couldn't possibly be more brazen now in that video they referenced the interim manager That's a huge union buster But what's interesting is how they got to this point with that interim manager so the previous boss was actually somebody who was friendly with all the workers and Corporate was trying to force that boss to punish these employees specifically that woman who we heard from they were making her write her up for arbitrary Reasons and you know cut hours for employees and so she didn't want to do that So she quit and that's exactly what Starbucks wanted because then they brought in the interim manager Who is working closely with corporate to bust up this union now? I don't know if that particular manager came from corporate or if it's an outside hire Who was hired with a stipulation that they'd get high pay if they break up this union effort I mean either way what Starbucks is doing here is just it's so brazen. They don't even care They don't care about the negative press their goal is to break up this union because they see if one store unionizes Then that's going to lead to a nationwide effort So if a dozen stores unionize then I mean it's only going to continue to happen The dominoes will fall one by one by one So I'll link you to that full video from a more perfect union It was just really really informative But Starbucks here is absolutely shameless and I for one do not want to give my money to a company Who retaliates against their own workers for trying to form a union? Perhaps this is the location that they're trying to make an example out of by treating their unionized or Workers who are trying to unionize more specifically the harshest but either way this is a policy that comes from corporate They don't want these unions They've been trying to bust up these unions across the country and now unfortunately for them by going too far a Lot more people are going to take notice of their treatment of workers and their anti-union efforts And I hope that it backfires because this is absolutely unacceptable