More than 1,000 Starbucks baristas at 75 U.S. stores have gone on strike since Sunday to protest a new company dress code, a union representing the coffee giant’s workers said Wednesday.
Starbucks put new limits starting Monday on what its baristas can wear under their green aprons.
The dress code requires employees at company-operated and licensed stores in the U.S. and Canada to wear a solid black shirt and khaki, black or blue denim bottoms.
Under the previous dress code, baristas could wear a broader range of dark colors and patterned shirts.
But Starbucks Workers United, the union that represents workers at 570 of Starbucks’ 10,000 company-owned U.S. stores, said the dress code should be subject to collective bargaining.
Starbucks said it would give two free black T-shirts to each employee when it announced the new dress code.
The union said this week that it filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging Starbucks’ failure to bargain over the new dress code. »