Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) floats around in a cloud of the rarefied air that is happy employees. Or so it seems if you gulp down the Frappuccino Kool-Aid, slurping up the frequent mentions in Fortune's "100 Top Employers" list, the formal name of "partners" instead of employees, the stock options, the good benefits, the repeated comments about raises in earnings calls and shareholder meetings. Yep, if you do nothing but lick up the PR, you must realize that Starbucks' workers -- err, partners -- are the happiest on every block.

Or are they? Not according to Daniel Gross, former partner at New York's Madison Avenue and 36th Street store, and the other members of the Starbucks Workers Union he helped organize. While their numbers must be small; the SWU only represents partners at nine of the company's 9,401 U.S. stores; their complaints are multitudinous. Two of the union's members, including Gross, were fired unfairly, they say. Starbucks has been cited by the National Labor Relations Board for breaking the law 30 times by pressuring union members. What's more, Starbucks partners aren't paid highly enough; the 'flexible hours' are too flexible and result in an always-uncertain schedule (yikes! I've never heard of food service organization with oft-changing schedules! oh, wait...); and the benefits aren't used by the majority of Starbucks partners (which Gross & company complain is because Starbucks limits its employees hours; Starbucks claims it's because so many of their employees have other coverage).

Not only that, there's the iced tea gestapo.

On August 7th, Starbucks (SBUX) fired Daniel Gross, a barista and organizer for IWW's Starbucks Workers Union. The Seattle P-I has that story.

The firing remains top news at the IWW's Starbucks Union website, where details began appearing as early as July 27th when decision over whether Gross would be terminated were still pending an investigation by the coffee retailer, and updates have appeared frequently the past few days.

Gross, who's a co-founder of the union, is appealing, claiming his firing is a demonstration of Starbucks anti-union stance. Starbucks is not giving its reasons for firing Gross, but say that it "doesn't discourage" union organizing.

U.S. companies rarely make termination information public. According to the union the firing stems from a protest held on off* store property earlier this year (not this protest, but another one -- over the status of a shift supervisor facing termination) in which it's alleged Gross made a threatening remark. Starbucks acknowledges that "maintaining a positive work environment" (a nice catch all phrase, that) is one of its "core competency" expectations of supervisors.

Michael Canfield is a private investor, a business and media writer, living in Seattle. He doesn't own stock in Starbucks.

Update: the protest in question was held on the public sidewalk, that is, OFF store property, not on, a fact not disputed by Starbucks or the Union.

Friday mid-afternoon at their store location, a group Starbucks [SBUX] espresso-pullers made known their membership in the IWW Workers Union according to a New York Press report. The public declaration was accompanied by a list of demands. The article quotes Daniel Gross, barista and union organizer, saying the group's main three concers are "a living wage, secure hours of 30 or more per week and an end to the anti-union campaign."  Customers were not served while the demands were being presented.

Starbucks has a one page paper stating its position toward (and opposition to) unionizing in its U.S. locations. I found it on the Corporate Social Responsibility section of the co.'s website as a pdf, dated 05 Dec 2005. (The Starbucks website has gone all pdf happy, btw -- even finding the calorie count of a white chocolate mocha requires downloading a pdf file). The doc claims the company does not "retaliate against workers interested in unionizing" and declares the company's belief that "that the direct employment relationship which we currently have with our partners is the best way to help ensure a great work environment" and that no "third party" such as a union is needed.

A note on terminology: Starbucks calls all its workers "partners" whether management or hourly. Probably needless to say, the IWW website terms baristas and other hourly workers as  "employees" distinct from management. As Paul Williams demonstrates, current and former Starbucks workers can become quite passionate about their relationship with the company.