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 ...
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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.