Some Ohio Starbucks employees recently unionized and used their newfound collective power to push back against directives to remove Pride flags from their stores. Photo: Provided by Starbucks Media Site

This article was originally published by the Buckeye Flame and is republished here with permission.

Starbucks barista Chelsea Cruea was taken aback when her manager sat her and a few coworkers down for a shift meeting last May.

“You guys aren’t going to like this,” Cruea said the manager told her and her coworkers. “But the Pride flags are going to come down.”

When asked why, Cruea said the manager claimed that it was “a corporate thing” and that “they don’t see [the Pride flags] as being 100% inclusive of everyone.” 

Right after the meeting, Cruea texted the rest of her co-workers. Frustrated and confused, they met with their district manager a few days later to discuss the issue and were told the decision to take down Pride flags was about branding.

“[The district manager] said that Starbucks wants to have a very standard brand across the board where you walk into any store and you know what to expect,” Cruea said. “That wasn’t the original reason we were given.”

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A sit-in to show support

Having recently unionized, the workers decided to utilize their newly found collective power to push back. First, they started a petition and sent it to management. Then, they planned a sit-in where members of the community came in to show their support for the workers and discuss why Pride decor is important to them. Neither action led to the decor being put back up.

To Cruea, the flags are much more than mere decoration. 

“They’ve been up for years,” Cruea said. “And people in the community come in and that gives them a sense of safety. I’ve had so many people come in and ask where they went since they got taken down.”

Cruea’s store, which is located on Clifton Boulevard on Cleveland’s west side, is far from the only Starbucks store to remove Pride decor during Pride month. According to Starbucks Workers United, the union that represents Starbucks workers, the company has banned stores nationwide from having Pride decor.

When asked by The Buckeye Flame for comment, a Starbucks representative denied that the company is telling stores to take down Pride decor and called the accusation “a misleading and false assertion by Workers United.”

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 Giving in to pressure

The events at Starbucks are occurring while a growing number of corporations are bowing to far-right pressure against LGBTQ+ representation. Recently, after videos surfaced of customers harassing employees and attacking LGBTQ Pride displays, Target pulled some LGBTQ+ products that were on display for Pride month and relocated others to less visible areas of the stores.

Shenby G, a barista at a Columbus Starbucks, said that she and her coworkers put up a Pride flag in her store on May 30. The next day, without saying a word, the manager removed the flag and stored it in his office. “His reasoning was that corporate said so,” Shenby said.

“They probably saw what happened with Target,” she added. “And they just are like, ‘No, we’re gonna protect our dollars and throw workers under the bus. We’ll do some advertisements to make it look like we’re progressive.’”

The workers responded by calling for a sip-in, where customers show up to demonstrate their support for the fledgling union. When customers took it upon themselves to put up a Pride flag, Shenby said that the manager ripped it down and threatened to call the police.

When asked for comment, the Starbucks representative said that the removal of the pride flag put up by a customer was “in accordance with our store safety and security policies” because the flag “blocks line of sight out of the store.”

Shenby sees this as one of several instances demonstrating that the company “does not care about queer and trans workers.” She mentions other missteps: the company allegedly threatening the loss of gender-affirming-care coverage if workers voted to unionize, doing little to empower workers against misgendering and disrespect from customers and refusing to bargain with newly formed unions. Many of these issues have been previously covered by The Buckeye Flame.

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The Starbucks representative denied each of these claims. They stated that the company has not threatened the loss of gender-affirming-care coverage, has provided pronoun pins for workers to wear on their uniforms and is “committed” to negotiating contracts with union representatives.

Similarly to Cruea, Shenby sees the flags as much more than pieces of cloth. 

“Putting that flag up isn’t for the company,” Shenby said. “It’s putting it up for ourselves and announcing that we’re here. So when the company forces us to take that down, it’s as if they’re trying to erase us, the ones that are making them all their money.”

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This article appears in Jun 14-27, 2023.