Starbucks employee alleges he was fired for being a union leader

Brut America

Sam Amato worked at Starbucks for 13 years until he was recently fired. Starbucks says it was due to "policy violations," but he says it's because he's a union leader ...

Transcript

00:00Do you want to walk out right now? Because you know that this is not right, but they did. Let's do it.

00:19I'm sorry it makes me a little emotional. I just wanted to make the place a better place

00:24for everyone I work with and, you know, Starbucks wanted to silence that.

00:30Today, this is the week of my 13-year anniversary at Starbucks. I was fired. I was told that due

00:50to an incident where we modified operations and closed the lobby, I am being separated.

00:56It is ABS reason. It's because I'm a union leader. When I continued the conversation with

01:01my manager and my union rep, they said I closed the lobby on July 3rd, so this was

01:09over a month before the date of my firing without permission, which is not true. I did work that

01:16day. The lobby did get closed that day, but it was not my decision. My manager is aware of that.

01:22They also cited two meetings or discussions that apparently I had in May. One was regarding the

01:28policy closing the lobby, and the other was regarding gaps in my performance. Neither of

01:33those conversations happened. They said if I needed answers to any questions, I'd have to

01:38call the corporate number. And then, of course, when I called the corporate number, they say,

01:42oh, your store manager answers those questions.

01:44We wanted pay increases. Our store in particular, we had broken tiles in our

02:13lobby and behind the counter that had not been fixed in two years, and just a bunch of

02:20maintenance issues that we've been regularly trying to get fixed, and Starbucks was just

02:24hesitant to fix those. For me, it was health insurance. Health insurance was a big one.

02:29My message to Melody Hobson is to stop union busting and to let workers have a vote in the

02:44voice. Stop union busting! We as employees of this company have a right to give you our demands.

02:52Not only that, we have a right to be treated fairly and justly, and that's not happening.

02:58They'll tell us they want us to vote no, and that it's not a threat, that they respect

03:04whatever decision we make, but then when your boss is telling you to do something,

03:11it's scary to go against that.

03:28We've had 10 store managers, six district managers within a span of eight months,

03:48and all of these people have enforced the rules differently, interpret the rules differently.

03:53Starbucks has been short-staffing our stores, cutting our hours, and short-staffing our stores,

03:58so we don't have enough people to operate the store the way they want it to. They preach

04:04human connectivity and us coming together. They call us partners. You would think they

04:10want us to join together and advocate for a better workplace, but then they really don't.

04:18They don't care about it. They don't care about us. They don't see us as people. They see us as a tool.

04:23They don't see us as a tool. They don't see us as a partner. They don't see us as a partner.

04:27They don't see us as a partner. They don't see us as a partner. They don't see us as a partner.

04:31They don't see us as a partner. They don't see us as a partner. They don't see us as a partner.

04:33They don't see us as a partner. They don't see us as a partner.

04:35They don't see us as a partner. They don't see us as a partner.

04:37They don't see us as a partner.

04:39They don't see us as a partner.

04:41They don't see us as a partner.

04:43They don't see us as a partner.

04:45They don't see us as a partner.

04:47They don't see us as a partner.

04:49They don't see us as a partner.

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