News coming out of Starbucks.
Starbucks Workers United just announced that over 150 stores and
counting are going to be going on strike to protest the company's
decision to ban Pride decor from their stores.
Let's talk about what you need to know.
Last week, several Starbucks workers revealed that their managers had removed
Pride decor in their stores.
Now, Starbucks denied those claims.
However, More Perfect Union published communications from store manager in
Oklahoma who admitted to the unionized employees at their store.
That Starbucks executives decided to ban Pride decor in what the company refers
to as Area 120, which spans stores in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.
The manager wrote, I know there has been some concerns around not decorating for
Pride this year.
The decision was made last year on a regional level to create consistency from
store to store.
Beyond that documented proof of Starbucks policies, workers in 19 other
states have claimed that they also saw their managers removing Pride decor.
Now, Washington Post also covered the story and
they wrote that the union says it's not alleging that such actions were a result
of a corporate top-down national policy.
But added in a statement to The Post that it is very hard to believe that corporate
was unaware of the actions because the purported instances of it happening were
so widespread.
Now, the strike isn't just limited to the specific stores where the Pride decor was
being taken down.
Other stores are showing solidarity from CNBC.
The roastery where the strikes will start Friday, has not had any dispute
over Pride decorations, but is also striking in solidarity.
Mari Cosgrove, a barista at the roastery, told CNBC the following frankly,
it feels like an attack when these flags are taken down.
The partners in these stores really appreciate being able to be seen and
feel like this is a community space for them.
Starbucks has really prided itself on being a third place, including for
its workers.
Now, these workers are also not just striking because of the taking
down of Pride decor.
They're also striking because Starbucks
has been refusing to negotiate a contract with them.
From that CNBC article, despite having our non-economic proposals for
over eight months and our-economic proposals for over a month now.
Starbucks has failed to tentatively agree to a single line of a single proposal or
provide a single counter proposal.
What Starbucks is doing is not bargaining, it's stalling.
More than 300 company owned stores have voted to unionize since the first filing
took place in August of 2021, but Starbucks and Workers United have yet
to agree to a contract.
Now, Jenk, I'm really excited about this because I've seen through this Pride month
corporations like target capitulating to the far right and
taking down their Pride decorations, their Pride sections.
So to see these workers coming together to fight not just against the lack of
negotiations on Starbucks's side.
But also against the capitulation to these far right groups,
I think it's a really good sign moving forward.
>> Yeah, so first of all, as to who's right and wrong,
clearly the workers are correct about the facts,
whether you agree with them on their decision to strike or not.
When they say it's done at the regional level and
it's targeted towards red states like Arkansas,
Oklahoma, it's absolutely clear that the Starbucks Corporation made a decision.
These places are not going to like having celebrating Pride month,
being in favor of gay rights, et cetera.
And so, first of all, it's kind of a damning conclusion by Starbucks that
these states are filled with hatred.
And so if you do something that's loving and inclusive and
cares about all human beings and treats everyone with equality.
It might hurt their business interests because the local population
doesn't want that.
They want hatred.
Now, this is any giant caveat to that.
It's actually not true of the local population.
It's true of a very loud minority.
So even in the red states, they're a minority, but they're so
loud, so vicious, so angry that it intimidates everyone else.
So we talked about this earlier in the show.
There's a weatherman in Iowa who measure climate change and
they threaten to murder him.
And so he's like, forget it, I'm not gonna be a weatherman.
They're threatening my family.
I can't have it.
He quit the profession.
And to Rayvana's point about this particular
strategy that the loud minority of right wingers have.
Yeah, they go in after Target and Bud Light, and
now Bud Light is trying to figure out how to be anti trans.
And they're reeling, And these corporate executives,
they don't know how to deal with politics, and it scares the hell out of them.
So they're trying to get out of it.
But the employees striking, fighting for someone they don't know.
I love that.
That's like the core of how to be a progressive, okay?
And they're putting their own livelihood on the line to fight for
others out of love and say, no, we believe in equal rights, and
we believe in bringing people together, not driving them apart.
I can't love these employees any more than I already do.
And one more thing.
So I say minority versus employees being right.
Well, that's just my opinion, right?
No.
Yes, my opinion also is on that side.
But when I talk about percentages, I'm being very literal.
So over 70% of Americans believe in gay marriage.
And so before, the right-wing had this BS excuse.
And by the way, it's the same excuse they used to attack gay people throughout
history, which is, I'm not attacking you because you're gay and
you're different than me, and you're not.
I'm attacking you because of the children, right?
Then the trans and the drag queens and stuff.
The children, the children, right?
It's nonsense.
It's the same old hatred.
It's the same old tactic for that hatred.
But now they've even just let that go.
They're like, Pride flag.
That means you think that gay people should have the same rights.
I hate you.
Okay, so then you hate gay people.
You hate all everybody in the LGBTQ community.
I'm at least glad that really obnoxious, hateful,
loud minority has owned up to who they are.
They're bigots and they're proud of it.
Okay, fine, but they are definitely not minority.
Even on trans rights ranges from a significant majority to two thirds in
favor of giving trans people the same exact rights as other human beings.
So right-wing, sorry, but you're just a really annoying, really loud,
small percentage of the country.
>> I don't think this is surprising at all on the side of Starbucks.
Starbucks has this long history of being anti union.
Howard Schultz was super anti-union.
I don't believe that the top-down culture of that has changed at all.
We're seeing that as they're challenging ongoing unionization.
And so looking at the situation where workers and
customers want to celebrate Pride and Starbucks having kind of this like,
no, we're totally in support of that.
This is a fluke.
I don't buy it at all.
They are capitulating to the right, and that's, again, nothing new for them.
If it's a choice between what they think will make them more money, which it won't.
But if they think it'll make them more money versus supporting their workers and
supporting pride.
They're obviously going to side with the rainbow capitalist style of
supporting Pride which is folding immediately as soon as there's any
pushback from again, a very small minority of very wild extremists.
So this is not surprising.
You could have predicted this from day one.
>> Look, I haven't seen the polling in Oklahoma, but
I would even predict that in Oklahoma, gay marriage is well over 50%.
So my point is here, guys, it's not even all of the right wing.
So there's plenty of the right-wing.
They're like, no, I don't hate gay people.
My cousin is gay or my son is gay, or turns out my mom was gay.
I didn't even know, right?
So we won a lot of the right-wing over.
I can show you in the polling.
But there is about again, the most true thing that Hillary Clinton ever said was
the line about the deplorables.
She said half of them are just frustrated with their lives, referring to Republican
voters, which is true, and the other half are deplorables, and that is also true.
So that's my take on it.
>> I was just gonna end and say that you're exactly right.
And I think it's really nice to see them fighting for
the stores that don't have the same the Pride decorations aren't being taken down
are fighting for the other stores.
I'll say I think it's really good worker solidarity also to just be willing to
strike for your coworkers who are gay.
So even if you're a gay person working in a store who the store has Pride, decor,
having that solidarity,
especially during a time where there's an unprecedented attack on our community.
It really does warm my heart because so much of the news about us has been so
negative.