Starbucks Workers Strike Back!

On Thursday, March 2, at 11:30 am Alice was told she was being fired from the University of Oregon’s EMU Starbucks. After working at different Starbucks locations for seven years, she didn’t know how to react. “I was really shocked. I really didn’t expect to get fired,” Alice says, “They didn’t even let me finish my last day.”

Alice declined to provide her last name as she hasn’t spoken with her lawyer.

Alice, her coworkers and a representative from Starbucks Workers United say they believe the firing to be unlawful. In a move of solidarity, her fellow co-workers walked out of the EMU location for the rest of the day, refusing to work.

Alice, who graduated from UO last June, previously attended the union meetings when the location first began its unionization process. The store is unionized but still has no union contract with the company.

“I really didn’t expect to get fired after putting seven years of my time into this company. I’m a hard worker,” Alice says.

After making customers drinks during the store’s peak operating hour, around 11 during school days, store manager Cody Banner and district manager Thomas Finley took Alice off the espresso machine. They sat Alice down in the middle of the EMU Fishbowl cafeteria, right out in front of the store, in front of her coworkers, and she was fired on the spot.

Alice says she asked Finley why she wasn’t terminated at the end of her shift at 2 pm. “I didn’t want to wait till 2,” Alice recalls Finley saying.

She was told it was for a previous write-up from over a month and a half ago.

Here’s the catch: Alice didn’t know about the infraction until she was being fired. The write-up cited the use of the word “bitchy” out in front of the store. Alice doesn’t remember using the word “bitchy.” She recalls that she was actually talking to a previous manager about issues with the store and how it was being run.

She and her coworkers say because of this they believe the termination was unlawful. Starbucks Workers United representative Jake LaMourie says that “her firing would be unlawful on the grounds that this ‘no cursing’ policy that they’re using as justification has never been enforced previously. A change in enforcement of pre-existing rules after a shop forms a union is illegal.”

“This is bullshit, they shouldn’t have fired her,” Owen Wach, a supervising manager for the EMU location says. At first, the workers tried to figure out why their friend had been fired. The district manager gave the EMU workers no reason and said that they will not be discussing the firing. “All they said was we won’t talk about it,” Madie Holst, Alice’s co-worker says.

Not even 30 minutes after Alice was fired, the workers turned the keys to the store over to Banner and Finley, who left.

EW reached out to Finley who did respond to request for comment before publication.

Read more on Eugene Weekly’s website here.