A Starbucks employee involved in the unionizing effort at a Raleigh location lost her job with the company last week, and she alleges that her firing stems from her union support.
Sharon Gillman, 20, was fired on April 9 from her job at the Starbucks at 2901 Sherman Oaks Place, just off of Wake Forest Road, following an incident that happened two months earlier.
On Feb. 13, while Gillman was washing dishes, she said a hose snapped off of the sink. Gillman said she radioed a shift supervisor who helped her reattach the hose to the wall. But she said the sink was too broken to use for the rest of the night and ultimately needed to be repaired.
In Gillman’s termination letter, which was shared with the News & Observer, Starbucks said she had “exercised physical force to company property which significantly affected the workplace, generated a concern for personal safety, and resulted in damage to the company property.” The letter said Gillman had violated Starbucks policies pertaining to maintaining safe work environments.
Union vote this week
Gillman, though, thinks her firing is in retaliation for her support of a potential labor union organizing at that location.
“I believe I was wrongfully terminated because of my activity in the union,” Gillman wrote on a GoFundMe campaign page over the weekend. “My name is on the letter and I was quoted in the press release when we went public. Our ballots are being sent out this week (April 11-15), and I believe I am being used as an example to intimidate my coworkers from voting “yes.”
The News & Observer previously reported on the intention of workers to vote on union representation at that Starbucks, a particularly busy location near the Wake Forest Road Wegman’s grocery store. Gillman was one of several workers who had signed her name to a letter sent to former Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson announcing the unionizing effort in Raleigh.
But Caroline Langdale, a spokesperson for Starbucks, said Gillman was not fired for her unionizing efforts but for violating company policies and procedures.
“This is unrelated to the current unionization efforts at the store,” Langdale said in a phone interview. “Our partners work hard to make Starbucks a warm and welcoming place for everyone.”
Gillman said she did not pull or yank on the dishwashing hose, but was stretching it to clear bubbles in a drain in the floor when it broke.
“That’s not something I would do,” Gillman said of damaging the sink.
Gillman said Starbucks offered to show her security footage of her in the dish room, which she said she declined to view, saying the accusation she had intentionally broken the sink left her “shook.”
“At the end of the day, I’m just a barista and they’re corporate Starbucks,” Gillman said. “I’m replaceable, they can rehire for my position tomorrow and it’ll be like I never worked at the company. I didn’t want to argue with it, they’re going to interpret (the video) the way they want.”
In February, seven workers signed a petition to unionize the Midtown East Starbucks, becoming the first location in North Carolina to pursue a labor union. That effort comes out of a growing trend of unionizing efforts at Starbucks locations across the nation, starting with Buffalo, New York locations in late 2021.
Protest at Starbucks store
On Monday, about 40 protesters met and marched around the Midtown East shopping center in response to Gillman’s firing. Many of the protesters were affiliated with the Fight for $15 movement, a group pushing for higher wages for fast food workers.
The protesters in Raleigh chanted outside the Starbucks and marched through the drive-thru, demanding that Gillman be reinstated.
Gillman started working for Starbucks in 2020 in Virginia and moved to the Midtown East location last year when she came to the area for school. She said he supported the unionizing efforts as a way of improving a high demand work environment.
“The Wake Forest Road location is probably the most high volume in our district,” Gillman said. “With that type of rush of people coming to our store, it makes it seem like the workers are not human beings. ... What we do is never enough and we want customers to see us as humans. I’m voting yes because of that.”
Gillman said she loved working at Starbucks and hoped to improve conditions for her and her co-workers.
“I love my job, I love working at Starbucks,” she said. “I miss the community within the store. The people I work with, they make the environment happy and energetic.”
Alyssa Watkins, another pro-union worker at the Raleigh Starbucks, thinks Gillman’s firing could end up helping organizing efforts at that location.
“I think partners who had been on the edge can see that without a union to protect you Starbucks can fire you for whatever they want,” Watkins said, using the Starbucks term for workers. “Without a union to defend you, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
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