Updated: Starbucks Workers' Union is furious with musician Ed Sheeran
*Updated at bottom
On Friday, English musician Ed Sheeran, who happened to be in Seattle to perform for a couple of nights, surprised fans by serving them pumpkin spice lattes and other drinks from behind a counter at a local Starbucks.
“The ‘Thinking Out Loud’ singer had taken to Instagram to post a mysterious and enticing message that pumpkin spice lattes were on him,” reported the Seattle Times, “leaving an address to the coffee shop.”
The event was to promote his new album Autumn Variations, which will be released on Tuesday.
Although hundreds of fans seemed thrilled with Sheeran’s performance as a barista, the Starbucks Workers United—the SEIU subsidiary that has unionized 350 of the company’s 9,000 company-owned stores—took to ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter) on Saturday to express its dismay.
“Ed Sheeran working a shift at a Starbucks store in Seattle that faced massive union-busting is straight up embarrassing,” the union posted on ‘X.’
“Not to mention almost every “worker” you see in that photo wearing a green apron is management, not baristas,” stated the union.
“AND, meanwhile,” the union continued, “workers at the Starbucks store down the street were drowning because they were grossly understaffed due to hour cuts.”
Although most replies to Starbucks’ post of Sheeran’s visit were positive, some union devotees expressed their disappointment in Sheeran for his appearance.
Starbucks Workers United began its campaign to unionize Starbucks in 2021.
However, despite unionizing 350 stores over the last two years, the company and union have been at odds and the union has yet to reach a contract for a single store.
More recently, employees at a number of Starbucks locations have filed petitions to decertify the union.
Those workers desire to vote to decertify the union, however, has been blocked by officials at the National Labor Relations Board.
Update: Apparently, Ed Sheeran’s working at a "union-busting" Starbucks store on Friday did not deter his fans. According to the Seattle Times on Sunday, concert on Saturday night set a new Lumen Field attendance record, even “smashing” Taylor Swift’s record from a month earlier.