Starbucks is now suing its employees’ union, Starbucks Workers United, but not over labor issues. The biggest coffee company in the world is suing the union to make it stop using the Starbucks corporate logo in its messages attacking Israel over the current fighting in Gaza. The union returned the favor so now both are suing one another.
Starbucks not only demands the union stop using its iconic green logo, but the company is also seeking to force Starbucks Workers United to stop using its name. Starbucks is suing for trademark infringement claiming that the anti-Israel posts in sympathy with Hamas harmed its brand name and alienated customers.
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The union filed its own suit in response claiming that the Starbucks lawsuit on its own defamed them by implying that the union supported terrorism.
On Saturday, October 7, a Sabbath and a major Jewish holiday as well, Hamas terrorists attacked civilian communities located in the area within just a few miles of the Gaza border. During this attack, hundreds of innocent people, including babies and pregnant women, were gunned down, beheaded, and even burned alive among other acts of barbarism. The death toll is now at least 1,300 people not just murdered, but brutally victimized.
Most of what actually happened on that day cannot be put into words.
For the record, Last week, a local Boston chapter of the union tweeted, “We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemn the IDF for the senseless and brutal bombing of innocent Palestinians, murder and injury, as well as for the creation and financing of Hamas in the 1980s to discourage Palestinian solidarity.”
The Starbucks union itself tweeted, “Solidarity with Palestine!” But, even though it was quickly deleted, the damage to the union was already done.
“This is disgusting. Every American should condemn the atrocities that Iran-backed Hamas terrorists committed in Israel,” tweeted Florida Senator Rick Scott in response. “Boycott Starbucks until its leadership strongly denounces and takes action against this horrific support of terrorism.”
Yet another Tweet showed a photo of a bulldozer breaking through the Gaza border fence with Israel calling it the “Israeli occupation fence” and commenting that the Hamas attack was about “literally breaking apart the Israeli-created mass prison in the Strip.”
Starbucks also condemned the tweet issuing a statement saying, “We unequivocally condemn acts of terrorism, hate and violence, and disagree with the statements and views expressed by Workers United and its members. Workers United’s words and actions belong to them, and them alone.”
Aara Kelly, Starbucks’ executive vice president, sent a letter to Starbucks’ employees at the time saying, “As a leadership team, we want to again express our deepest sympathy for those who have been killed, wounded, displaced and impacted following the heinous acts of terror, escalating violence and hate against the innocent in Israel and Gaza this week. Starbucks unequivocally condemns acts of hate, terrorism and violence.”
But Starbucks Workers United is actually trying to play the victim here. The union’s president Lynne Fox claimed in a letter to Starbucks that the company “is seeking to exploit the ongoing tragedy in the Middle East to bolster the company’s anti-union campaign.”
