Starbucks fired three Portland-area baristas last month. Their crime? Writing on the sidewalk outside their store.
Aspen Maxwell and Hannah Zimmerman say they used chalk to draw “workers deserve a fair contract,” “union strong,” and other slogans outside their Hillsboro Starbucks Aug. 14, the day before regional director Jennifer Garcia was to visit the store.
“We went — after hours, off the clock — to write these messages, knowing that she would be showing up the next day,” Maxwell told the Labor Press.
After Garcia’s visit, cleaners came to remove the chalk writing from the ground of the seating area and parking lot outside the coffee shop, which is located in a shopping center on Northeast Cornell Road and Stucki Avenue. Maxwell said the work order for the cleaners said it was for “vulgar vandalism,” but the writing didn’t contain anything remotely obscene.
“It was intentionally really, really tame,” Maxwell said. “We wanted Jennifer to know that we’re ready for a contract and that we’re a proud union store. We’re not trying to be totally outrageous, we’re just ready for what’s due to us, and that’s our contract.”
Later in August, managers notified Maxwell, Zimmerman, and Ryan Shepherd, a barista at a different unionized location, that they were under investigation and conducted individual interviews with the three workers. All three were fired Sept. 10 for what management called “egregious misconduct.”
The firings came as a shock, Zimmerman said, because workers have repeatedly drawn chalk messages outside stores during past strikes and pickets.
After the firings, supporters rallied outside the Hillsboro shop, doubled down with more chalk messages and encouraged customers to call district managers and skip their Starbucks stop until the three workers are reinstated. Workers at Stucki Avenue and Valley Plaza, where Shepherd works, also went on a one-day strike Sept. 24 to demand reinstatement with back pay for the three workers.
Shepherd is in a relationship with Zimmerman but was not involved in the chalk action, Zimmerman and Maxwell said. Starbucks management claimed they had security camera footage of the three workers writing the chalk messages, but Maxwell said the third person was a community supporter who is not employed by Starbucks.
Zimmerman and Maxwell had each worked for Starbucks about six years. Zimmerman said she had not had any previous discipline or write ups; Maxwell’s only past reprimands were an attendance violation that was eventually overturned and a write up for wearing a union T-shirt to work two years ago.
Workers at the Stucki Avenue coffee shop voted unanimously to join Starbucks Workers United in March 2023.
The firings violated workers’ federally protected rights, the union alleged in unfair labor practice charges filed with the National Labor Relations Board. The federal government shutdown that began Oct. 1 has since frozen NLRB activity.
In the last four years, workers have voted to unionize at more than 600 Starbucks stores but the company has yet to agree to any union contract.
