A group of LGBTQ+ baristas is working to unionize a Starbucks in Huntsville for what they hope will help create a more fair and equitable workplace for everyone.
If successful, the store on Memorial Parkway would be the third organized Starbucks outlet in Alabama, after stores in Scottsboro and Birmingham. The organizing team wants to join Starbucks Workers United, the union that represents over 570 union Starbucks stores, out of about 15,000 outlets in total.
Questions at the Huntsville Starbucks were directed to a corporate media line. Messages sent by phone and email seeking comment were left with Starbucks.
Huntsville union organizing team members Briar Wolf and Nox Ashes were initially drawn to Starbucks because of its long-standing reputation as an inclusive and supportive workplace, especially for LGBTQ+ employees.
“Starbucks is the place where queer people land and where trans people land because they’ve had a reputation for a long time as being a friendly place to work,” she said. “You know, there’s the joke about the whole blue hair, they/them baristas making the best coffee and all that. Starbucks had presented themselves as this, this paragon of acceptance for queer and trans people to be able to work there.”