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This Pride Month, amid a wave of protests targeting LGBTQ-friendly brands, Starbucks workers say they’ve been asked to take down Pride decorations. Workers say it’s part of a larger trend of undermining and demoralizing baristas, who are unionizing nationwide.

Starbucks Workers United members took part in “Strike with Pride” actions across the country on June 25. (Starbucks Workers United)

At the New York City Pride March on Sunday, June 25, Starbucks Workers United members jumped in front of the Starbucks corporation’s Pride contingent. They raised banners that read “Starbucks took down Pride Decorations & LIED about it” and “STARBUCKS UNION-BUSTING IS HOMOPHOBIC.”

The union’s delegation, already outnumbering the company’s official ranks, grew as people left the corporate contingent to join them. The resonant chant of “What’s disgusting? Union busting!” echoed down Fifth Avenue and across the thoroughfares of Greenwich Village, Manhattan’s historic gay neighborhood.

Maria Flores, a queer barista and union member at the Astoria Boulevard Starbucks, attended her first ever Pride march — alongside more than seventy other workers from ten different stores across the tristate area — on strike in protest of Starbucks’s removal of Pride decorations in stores across the country.

“It was surreal to be among tens of thousands of people marching, creating their own chants in real time,” Flores told Jacobin. “It’s not your traditional strike, but it was the most amazing thing that happened in New York City that day.”

Another group of union activists picketed outside the Astor Place Starbucks location in the East Village, adjacent to the Pride fest. Both were a part of the “Strike with Pride” actions organized by Starbucks Workers United in response to the removal of Pride decorations in stores — an effort that included Starbucks workers at more than 150 stores across the country. The strikes, as well as the concomitant unfair labor practice charges, are also in protest of Starbucks’s refusal to negotiate in good faith and its continued union busting, workers say.

Starbucks has stated it does not have a policy of removing Pride decorations. But “partners” (the company word for workers) say otherwise. Recently, More Perfect Union published emails confirming the anti-Pride directive in at least one region in the South.

“Starbucks policy is unclear and vague,” explained Matt Cartwright, who is a shift supervisor and union member at the State Street store in Madison, Wisconsin. “It might be true they don’t have a written policy about Pride decorations, but they certainly act like they do.” (On Monday, the company announced it would develop “clearer” guidelines around store decor.) 

At the Berkshire Center Starbucks in Danbury, Connecticut, where there will be a union election on July 6, workers put up a pride flag on a Wednesday. Later that day, it was taken down without notice, and subsequently put back up by the workers. On Thursday, the district manager came in and took down the flag as well as window decorations, saying the store is “going in a different direction and trying to create uniformity in the stores in the area to create a ‘cohesive Starbucks experience,’” said barista Theresa Buchta.

Buchta, a twenty-nine-year-old queer union member, told Jacobin that the district manager pulled her and other pro-union workers aside during service to inform them of this “different direction.” But when they asked to see where this policy came from, the manager denied it was a policy and reiterated corporate’s line that they aren’t “banning decorations.” She also told Jacobin that, since filing for an election, baristas had experienced increased surveillance from management, decreased labor hours, and a barrage of captive audience meetings.

At the State Street location in Madison, where workers won their union election earlier this year by a count of twenty to one, workers described a similar situation in which a district manager personally removed all Pride decorations including a flag that had been up in the store since May. “Our manager said this is not an attempt to suppress Pride but rather maintain the Starbucks vision,” said Cartwright, who described that vision as “cold and uniform.” Cartwright is also skeptical of the stated desire of a sterilized Starbucks brand. “Why are we allowed to put up decorations for the holidays but not Pride?”

His coworker Allie Kerr, who has worked at the State Street Starbucks for eight years, said the change is “disheartening” and that the store where she has grown and seen others grow similarly is “no longer as safe a space.”

Workers’ initial dismay quickly turned to action with a reinvigorated union effort. On June 16, the day after their Pride decor was unilaterally removed by management, pro-union partners at the Berkshire Center store “marched on the boss,” presenting a list of demands including an end to anti-union rhetoric, captive-audience meetings, and cutting hours. Buchta said the manager got up and walked away in response, “despite the fact that she has spent the past several weeks forcing [workers] to listen to her in captive-audience meetings.”

Even though the manager left, the union remained and read testimonials as a celebration of their action. There hasn’t been a single captive-audience meeting since. “I was nervous, but as we turned the corner and faced down the manager as this massive, organized group, I felt so empowered,” said Buchta.

More than three thousand workers are participating in Strike with Pride to fight back against the unilateral suppression of Pride in stores, according to the union. While that is planned to last through the week, Starbucks Workers United continues to organize new stores. Its most recent victory is in Missoula, Montana, which means there are now 331 unionized Starbucks across forty states. The campaign announced that workers at locations in Indiana, Missouri, and Nebraska had filed for union elections recently as well.

LGBTQ workers are particularly vulnerable under capitalism, caught in the cross fire of bigots determined to deny their personhood and corporations that shed their superficial support at the slightest pushback while continuing to deny workers a living wage and decent benefits. As right-wing reactionaries continue to foment moral panic targeting members of the LGBTQ community and their supporters, the colors of “rainbow capitalism” are fading.

The notion of the “woke” corporation is questionable to begin with. Corporations occasionally weigh in on social issues, but they ultimately prioritize profit above all else. That’s what has made boycotts and strikes historically effective, as these labor actions hold corporate profits hostage. But right-wingers can play that game too. Amid a surge of anti-Pride protests nationwide, including backlash against brands that embrace Pride, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Starbucks would change its tune to protect its profits.

“That’s the problem with capitalism. Capitalists don’t have moral convictions. They have stock accounts,” says Buctha. “They don’t care about us, actually. Of course they are going to flip the moment right-wing extremists apply any pressure.”

The multibillion-dollar coffee conglomerate continues to sell rainbow-themed coffee mugs. At least one store has admitted to removing Pride decor, but management says it was doing so as a way to protect workers from potential threats.

Workers say they won’t be shoved back in the closet. “Queer and trans rights are won through struggle. Hiding us isn’t protecting us,” queer union member and barista Shenby G told Jacobin. “A fair contract that guarantees health care, a living wage, and safety standards is what protects us.”

Baristas were also quick to point out that they face constant harassment and threats on the job, but they feel the company has yet to adequately address them. “Baristas face threats from customers routinely, and Starbucks doesn’t do much in response to that. Why do they only mention it now, during Pride?” asked Kerr.

Other workers fear that acquiescing to right-wing hate mongering will only embolden those seeking to eradicate queerness from public spaces. “Check the comment section of an article about this,” said Kerr. “It’s not hard to see how these actions are emboldening people who have these beliefs. This shows them that violent rhetoric gets them what they want.”

Many baristas see the suppression of Pride in stores as connected to the broader union-busting campaign Starbucks has waged over the past two years. “By unionizing, we are demanding more control [in the workplace], and it’s empowering to take collective action,” said Buchta. “Starbucks’s strategy is to try to wrestle that control back and make it seem like it’s not worth fighting in any way they can. Taking down the decorations is part of that. But in our store, it’s just made people angrier. It’s made people want to fight harder.”

On Saturday, June 17, Eugene “Gus” Newport passed away at the age of eighty-eight. Newport, a socialist, served as the mayor of Berkeley for seven years, from 1979 to 1986. While his name is lesser known today outside the Bay Area, Newport’s mayoralty epitomized a national movement among local elected officials to institutionalize the Third […]

Under the banner of “Auditions Are Work,” a group of SAG-AFTRA members are organizing to enforce a little-known provision of their contract that guarantees pay for auditions. With many actors spending hours each week auditioning, there’s a lot to gain.

With self-taping taking an hour of labor at minimum, actors devote significant time and effort to the audition process.(innovatedcaptures / Getty Images)

When Thomas Ochoa signed with a theatrical agent, his representative reminded him to prioritize auditions. Be available for auditions; don’t miss them or turn them down; and if you must take a vacation or attend to family, try to do so during slow periods in the industry. It was standard advice for an actor.

“The most consistent work that an actor does is auditioning,” says Ochoa, whose credits include iCarly and Me Time. Given that he often performs as a drag queen, that work can be particularly time-consuming: even if he were to speak only one word in an audition, if the producers want him to be in character, it requires several hours of preparation.

While not every actor spends as much time on costume preparation as Ochoa does, they still devote significant time to the audition process. Now, with the advent of self-taping — a shift from the traditional casting call that, while already in practice before the pandemic, became the norm with the onset of COVID-19 — the costs are significant.

“At a bare minimum, a self-tape audition is at least an hour of labor, and that’s if you’re not spending a ton of time preparing the script,” says Ochoa. “But in terms of other preparation, you’re usually also physically preparing for the role, setting up equipment, filming and editing it, and then that work is doubled for your unpaid reader.”

According to Variety, outsourcing the task of reading with an actor to actors themselves has saved producers some $250 million per year. It is safe to assume that the total savings on studio space, equipment, and additional staff hours amounts to a much higher figure.

“With self-tapes, I have to ask someone in my life to do free work for my job,” says Tavi Gevinson, whose credits include Gossip Girl (2021) and Neo Yokio. “Plus, a lot of actors want to use other actors as readers, because you want to give a good performance — you want to read with someone who you can really be in a scene with you, so it’s as if actors are doing double the work.”

Gevinson and Ochoa are part of a group of members of the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) who are pushing for a means to make that work more sustainable, one that is already in the union’s television and theatrical contract.

Under the banner of “Auditions Are Work,” the group is advocating for the enforcement of a provision in the book-length union contract that entitles members to compensation for auditions. Specifically, Schedule A 15 (B) of the standard contract states that if an actor does not book the role for which they auditioned, “the performer shall receive one-half (½) day of pay.” SAG-AFTRA’s current day rate is $1,082, meaning this would amount to $541 for every job that is auditioned for but not booked.

The guarantee has existed in the union contract since 1947, but in recent decades, it has rarely been enforced. Few members were even aware of the language until 2019, when actor Charlie Bodin found it while flipping through a SAG contract he’d found in a library. He has since generated an extensive spreadsheet to compare SAG’s collective bargaining agreements over the years.

As Bodin’s discovery gained attention, the union published a statement about the provision.

“It has come to the attention of SAG-AFTRA that there is a lack of clarity regarding the requirement of payment for auditions where the performer is not subsequently offered employment on the picture,” wrote the union in September 2022. They went on to delineate the circumstances in which members can claim audition pay, such as when they are made to wait more than one hour for an audition or “expressly” required to memorize lines in advance of the audition.

But Auditions Are Work’s members say that not only is the latter circumstance not mentioned in the contract, it’s also a canard: a producer doesn’t need to tell an actor to memorize their lines for an audition because every actor knows that is the best way to increase their chances of booking a role.

“I’ve done about as much auditioning-for-TV training as you can do in Los Angeles, and the number one tip that any actor will hear for successful auditions is to be off-book: be memorized, and know your material,” says Ochoa.

Actors say that since the September 2022 SAG-AFTRA statement, producers have begun including a memorization disclaimer when soliciting auditions. That doesn’t stop actors from memorizing their lines, but it does protect production from audition pay claims.

As SAG-AFTRA began negotiating its contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which expires today, Auditions Are Work’s members created a list of demands: rescind the September 2022 statement concerning audition pay, reject any proposal from the studios that diminishes the audition pay provision, and enforce audition pay.

“All the other issues that people are talking about right now in regard to negotiations — artificial intelligence, streaming residuals, raising employer contributions to our health and pension plans — are really important, and they’re things we need to negotiate for and win,” says Gevinson. “But we already have this provision. We just have to protect it.”

There are a few objections that tend to arise when enforcement of the provision is raised. Many actors see auditions as job interviews, and rarely is a worker paid for that. But as Auditions Are Work’s members point out, that comparison does not hold up when one considers auditions’ function for the industry.

“I don’t know anyone who does multiple job interviews a week where they have to create a unique work sample that was solicited per the producer’s specifications that they cannot reuse in another ‘interview’ at the frequency that working actors audition, or at the scale that producers solicit auditions,” says Gevinson. Plus, auditions can function as table reads for producers, a means of enabling them to hear the script read aloud by professionals. That has artistic value and can lead to rewrites and tweaks of the script.

There are monetary benefits, too. Producers frequently solicit auditions while an offer is already out to an actor for a role, effectively making other actors bargaining chips, or backups, should the desired performer fall through.

But there is another concern, one that was raised during a town hall held by Auditions Are Work in May of this year. During the Zoom event, at which roughly one hundred actors listened to the group’s members discuss the topic, some attendees expressed anxiety that if the audition pay provision were enforced, producers would cut back on the number of auditions they solicit, prioritizing offers to known actors and diminishing the opportunities for lesser-known performers.

“There is a practical concern around ‘opportunities’ for actors who are not well known,” says Gevinson. “But what we have right now is an illusion of opportunity, and it’s worth getting concrete about how the casting process currently functions to explain why the self-tape cattle calls are not actually fair or ethical.”

Characterizing the current process as a “cattle call” is hardly an exaggeration. Self-taping has enabled producers to expand the number of auditions they solicit, or direct casting directors to solicit, exponentially.

“We are now expected to (and need to) see between one hundred and five hundred actors per role,” wrote casting director Alexis Allen Winter in Deadline. Compared to being one of the thirty to fifty auditions that might take place in person, submitting a self-taped audition is more akin to entering a lottery. Writing about self-tapes, Winter admitted, “Do we watch ALL of them all? Not all of the time.”

Auditions Are Work’s members emphasize that the issue is not one of casting directors versus actors but rather casting directors and actors versus producers. Casting directors are following the guidelines communicated to them by producers, and the group’s members believe that audition pay would improve the process for casting directors, too.

“I’m not criticizing casting directors,” says Gevinson. “I’m saying a crazy burden has been placed on them. There’s no transparency around this process, so what we have right now is not actually some kind of meritocracy.”

“I have a number of friends who I would be quoting by saying, I would much rather have fewer auditions that are more legitimate than to keep making these self-tapes that I’m actually not in a position to turn down because I need casting to know that I’m game, and I need my reps to stay invested in me — reps and casting have a relationship that is at play here — and I want the producers to remember that I exist or to learn that I exist,” she continues. “It is a union-wide issue. We need everyone to keep talking about it and to ultimately decide, as a democratic organization, what to do with this provision.”

That gets to a more fundamental issue: What precedent does it set for a union to advocate against the enforcement of a provision that is already in its contract? Being treated professionally by employers is a perpetual issue for performers, and voluntarily giving up pay to which they are entitled works against that goal.

“It conveys the message that I believe my work actually isn’t worth that pay,” says Gevinson. “That does not put you in a position of power — it doesn’t put us in a position of power as performers, and it does not put us in a position of power as a union. Why would you negotiate against yourself like that?”

There was a hype in propaganda and US political statements against President Putin. 

Putin knew about it before it happened. He was briefed by the Ministry of Defense and the FSB. 

US intel had advanced knowledge of Prigozhin’s intent.

“U.S. …

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