Starbucks – Are they really zero-tolerance to discrimination?

While browsing Twitter, I came across a tweet from Starbucks (yep I follow them just in case they do some superb deal that I can’t refuse) that stated:

Not knowing what this was all about, I became intrigued to know more, so off I went to find the blog in question. After searching Google, I ended up resorting to Twitter and found the blog that the Tweet was about.

The blog is about a customer witnessing a ‘manager’ and other members of staff for being homophobic towards another member of staff, who in the end got sacked for allegedly being gay. To read the full blog, it can be located here:

I Know Starbucks is Not an Anti-Gay, Homophobic Company (by Policy)…. BUT….

After reading the blog, I was a little astounded by the pure unprofessionalism that allegedly happened within the store that day. Apart from the way the member of staff was treated for being gay, but also for doing it in the middle of the shopfloor in front of customers.

You could argue that this is a one-off incident, and Starbucks do have a zero-tolerance to discrimination. As the blogger states, maybe this is what they state on paper, but what really happens out there is different.

While I was trying to find out about the story, I came across two other separate incidents where Starbucks have been accused of disability discrimination. The first was about Starbucks paying out $80,000 for not giving someone a job due to them having multiple sclerosis. The most recent news articles is where the US government are suing the company after a member of staff who is a dwarf requested a stool or step-ladder to assist with her job, and later was fired that day.

Do I believe that Starbucks is a discriminatory company? No, but there are a small number of incidents of where it has happened, but the company has took it upon themselves to investigate.

I should also note that this doesn’t affect my opinion on the company. Starbucks are mainly franchises, so little companies within an organisation. If I witnessed discrimination within Starbucks, then I am more likely to just boycott the branch and not the company. After all, the world is saturated with other Starbucks.

Additionally, I have to applaud Starbucks for being so open about the investigation. There would be a lot of people on Twitter that will not have known about this incident (like me), but they have preempted the situation and shown that they are investigating, which is extremely unusual for a company to be so open.

So what will happen now? The chances are that the coffee store is most-likely a franchise. Should the ‘manager’ and staff be sacked for being discriminatory? If the ‘manager’ is the owner of the franchise, should they lose their license? If the owner doesn’t act upon the incident or similar incidents happen in the future, should Starbucks be sterner with their punishment?

Related Articles:

Reuters | U.S. sues Starbucks for firing dwarf from barista job
National | Starbucks pays $80,000 to settle discrimination lawsuit