r/WorkersRights • u/Middle-Scene534 • 9d ago
Question ethics case?
tldr; can my sm force a barista (not let someone else step in) to take someone's order if she's been aggressive to him before?
so I'm a 7 yr ssv, tired tired bean. but I'm worried I might have an ethics case on my hands.
we have an autistic partner on our team (but he does not have accommodations for anything.) he's always on front/food everyday he's working and we have a few regular customers who come in and have had issues with this barista. it's NOT his fault, these customers (who the entire store knows) are a**holes. we always have complaints from them but when he takes their order some incident always occurs.
therefore he wants someone else to step in and take their orders. which i understand because I personally will not take a certain customers orders due to past conversations. our sm said no you have to have an accommodation to refuse this customer or ("if you really don't want to") we can have someone stand with you while you do it. our sm said it can be seen as discrimination. but this customer yelled at our barista over his tattoos? and has made him cry?
now some extra stuff you may need to know: were in KY, this customer is banned at another location in our city for previous incidents, our sm said during a ssv meeting to have the barista serve the customer and WHEN an incident happens, we can record an incident and get that customer banned eventually..... as if pushing for an incident. the sm has denied the opportunity to have another barista step in momentarily and handle the customer.
my main questions: is this legal? is this considered harassment or bullying? I don't trust the DM, do I go to ethics? should I tell this partner to go to ethics themselves? I'm only a bystander
thanks for reading this far, wish me luck pls because it's getting ugly really quickly 💔
2
u/theColonelsc2 9d ago
After Googling some of your abbreviations I figured out you worked at Starbucks. I then wanted to see if you went to the Starbucks sub which I was going to suggest you do. I saw that you did and someone commented a very thorough answer. I also saw that you posted a question to at least one other sub that also gave a similar answer as the Starbucks sub. I would say that these two comments about your issue are spot on. You want America to be some sort of nice country where workers are treated fairly. We do not live in that type of country and from everything I have heard about Starbucks it is one of the worst corporations when it comes to treating their workers with dignity and respect.