Starbucks Accused of Threatening Gender-Affirming Health Care Benefits
Bloomberg, which first reported the allegations.“I think the company realizes that we as trans partners feel particularly vulnerable at this time,” Starbucks employee Neha Cremin in Oklahoma told the outlet. “I think that in some cases they are willing to take advantage of that.”According to the complaint filed Monday, union Workers United said Starbucks had threatened its workers with a loss of benefits at the store Cremin worked.
The union accuses the company of attempting to prevent its employees from organizing.“Just know that if you unionize, when you are negotiating your benefits, you could gain, you could lose, or you could stay the same,” Cremin said her manager told her.
Cremin alleges that her manager then said, “I know specifically, you have used the trans health-care benefits.”Cremin told Them, “trans rights are labor rights.” “Our fight to make this state better for transgender people will also benefit all workers, and the current wave of unionization makes the workplace a safer place for transgender people,” Cremin said. “We deserve access to healthcare.
We deserve to be paid enough not just to survive but also to transition, to love, to thrive. When we fight to make the workplace better for trans people, we help all workers.”Another Starbucks in Pittsburgh also told Bloomberg that her manager had brought up the company’s gender-affirming health care benefits.
