Local elected officials wrote to Starbucks Corp.’s president and CEO Wednesday to protest the firing of employees here seemingly related to efforts to unionize a Memphis store.
Seven employees of the coffee shop close to Poplar and Highland were fired Tuesday. The move came as the workers planned efforts to form a union. But Starbucks officials said the employees were fired for other reasons.
The employees met with a reporter with WMC Action News 5 about their effort. Company officials said the employees violated a number of company policies, including meeting in the store after hours and allowing in non-employees after the store had closed.
The story gained national attention and the store has been the site of in-person protests from members of Memphis Restaurant Workers United.
On Wednesday, several local elected officials wrote to Kevin Johnson, Starbucks’ president and CEO, to say the justifications of the firings were “disturbing.” For one, the employees should not have been fired for providing access for the media to cover the story, a move that “should be troubling to anyone concerned with press freedom and the free exchange of information.” For another, firing the workers on other, smaller violations of company policies “seems a harsh response,” leaders said in the letter.
The letter was penned by former Shelby County Commissioner Steve Mulroy, who is now running for the Shelby County District Attorney General’s seat. It was co-signed by Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, Tennessee State Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis), Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner, Memphis City Council member Patrice Robinson, Memphis City Council member Dr. Jeff Warren, and Shelby County Commissioner Reginald Milton.
“Coming as it does so soon after a highly publicized union drive, it is hard to dismiss the suspicion that the firings were a response to the union drive, and that the cited reasons are pre-textual,” reads the letter. “If the union organizing played even a partial role in the firings, it would violate the National Labor Relations Act — as you well know, since the [National Labor Relations Board] found your company to have engaged in just such retaliatory behavior in 2019 and 2020.
“Whatever the truth, it is concerning that these firings tend to have the effect (if not the purpose) of killing the nascent union movement in its infancy.”
