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 large’s employees mentioned Wednesday.
Starbucks put new limits beginning Monday on what its baristas can put on underneath their inexperienced aprons. The gown code requires workers at company-operated and licensed shops within the U.S. and Canada to put on a strong black shirt and khaki, black or blue denim bottoms.
Beneath the earlier gown code, baristas might put on a broader vary of darkish colours and patterned shirts. Starbucks mentioned 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 employees at 570 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-owned U.S. shops, mentioned the gown code ought to be topic to collective bargaining.
“Starbucks has misplaced its manner. As a substitute of listening to baristas who make the Starbucks expertise what it’s, they’re targeted on all of the incorrect issues, like implementing a restrictive new gown code,” mentioned Paige Summers, a Starbucks shift supervisor from Hanover, Maryland. “Prospects don’t care what colour our garments are after they’re ready half-hour for a latte.”
Summers and others additionally criticized the corporate for promoting kinds of Starbucks-branded clothes that workers now not are allowed to put on to work on an inner web site. Starbucks mentioned it could give two free black T-shirts to every worker when it introduced the brand new gown code.
Starbucks mentioned Wednesday that the strike was having a restricted influence on its 10,000 company-operated U.S. shops.
“Hundreds of Starbucks companions got here to work this week able to serve their clients and communities,” the corporate mentioned in an announcement. “It will be extra productive if the union would put the identical effort into coming again to the desk to finalize an affordable contract.”
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 mentioned this week that it filed a grievance with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board alleging Starbucks’ failure to discount over the brand new gown code.