Starbucks employees at the Garden of the Gods location in Colorado Springs are on strike Friday due to unfair labor practices perpetuated by the company and alleged attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community, according to a Friday morning press release.

“Workers are on strike! We are asking Starbucks to respect Pride decorations and celebrations, and to come to the bargaining table after a year of union busting,” the local strike committee said in a released statement.

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“No contract, no coffee!” is the strike motto.

The employees from the store, located at 4465 Centennial Boulevard, unionized under the name Starbucks Workers United, planned to protest outside of the shop until noon against what they call unfair labor practices. More coverage of the protest is available from Gazette media partner KKTV. 

The Starbucks store strike is only the latest, with previous worker strikes in Starbucks stores in Denver, Boulder, Cherry Creek, Westminster, Littleton, and Superior. The protest strikes follow allegations by the union that the international chain was not allowing workers to put up LGBTQIA+ Pride Month decorations.

Starbucks has responded by filing a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), claiming that the “union and its agents have engaged in a smear campaign that includes deliberate misrepresentations to Starbucks partners.” The company’s website itself makes repeated mentions of being supportive of inclusion. Among them is an inclusion timeline, stretching from 1988 when Starbucks health care plans first included coverage for same-sex spouses, through public support for marriage equality in 2015, to this June when the company announced it would join the Human Rights Campaign’s “Count Us In” pledge to continue to (sic) “sand in solidarity with the LGBTQIA2+ community.”

The company maintains that its Pride Month decoration policy has not changed, and the company continues its support of the community. 

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According to the release, strikers are accusing the company of tokenizing their LGBTQIA+ workers for “good press and higher profits.”

Starbucks has faced criticism recently, both from the NLRB and Congress for alleged anti-union actions.

Since December of 2021, the Starbucks union has grown by 8,000 employees across 320 Starbucks locations across the country. Undergirding the current series of nationwide strikes is the union’s campaign to get union contracts for its membership store workers, which has not happened yet. 

“Workers are fighting back against Starbucks’ performative allyship and demanding the company respect their rights by negotiating in good faith at the bargaining table,” the Garden of the Gods union release said.

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