Costume drama at the cafés
A brewing tempest in a coffee cup
Writing in the waning days of the Roman Republic, Cicero, in his Socratic dialogue, De Legibus (or On the Laws), mentioned the reputation of Marcus Gratidius, a Roman statesman known for stirring up controversy and who was a chief political rival (and brother-in-law) of Cicero’s grandfather, also called Marcus Tullius Cicero.
Excitabat enim fluctus in simpulo ut dicitur Gratidius.
Translated: “For Gratidius raised a tempest in a ladle, as the saying is.”
Cicero’s words have come to signal something small that is blown way out of proportion.
In today’s grand theater of American labor disputes, a new farce is unfolding at those counters where millions receive their morning fix. Over one thousand baristas—stalwart guardians of the nation’s caffeine supply—abandoned their posts at 75 Starbucks locations nationwide.
Their grievance? The corporate oppression of being asked to wear black shirts.
The horror.
While the modern American worker faces a litany of challenges—inflation, taxes, increasing housing costs, sky-high gas prices, technological displacement, et cetera—somehow, the requirement to don a simple black t-shirt was the straw that broke the camel’s back in the latest uprising among the latte-slinging class.
Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol, in his “Back to Starbucks” campaign, committed the cardinal sin of asking employees to wear solid black shirts in concert with the company’s iconic green apron. This grievous imposition comes after five consecutive quarters of declining same-store sales, as the coffee giant struggles to maintain its marketplace dominance.
One can hear the ghost of Samuel Gompers rolling in his grave. Could the labor titan, who fought for the eight-hour workday, have ever envisioned a future where workers would down tools over the color of their uniform?
The striking baristas claim financial hardship at the center of their protest. The argument: the required black shirts place an undue economic burden on workers already struggling to make ends meet.
This remarkable position suggests that the acquisition of several black t-shirts—items available at any discount retailer for less than the price of a Starbucks Frappuccino—represents an insurmountable financial hurdle.
The modern American retail employee has long understood that appropriate attire constitutes a basic requirement of employment. From McDonald’s to Macy’s, uniform standards are as fundamental to commercial enterprise as showing up on time. Yet somehow, this elementary concept has morphed into a supposed human rights violation worthy of collective action.
The company’s opening gambit was to offer two complimentary shirts to each employee, but the gesture was rendered meaningless by union representatives who insisted this pittance of fabric fails to address the “multiple shifts per week” that workers endure. One wonders how these same individuals manage the herculean task of occasionally washing their work attire, a practice that has somehow sustained America’s workforce since the industrial revolution.
The financial calculations of the striking baristas merit particular scrutiny. These are workers who, while lamenting the burden of purchasing several black shirts, somehow maintain access to life’s other, more essential comforts.
Visit any Starbucks and observe the staff on break—there sits the $30 hardback novel, freshly purchased rather than borrowed from the public library. There rests the latest smartphone, not the more economical model but the premium handheld computer with more storage capacity than a mainframe from a generation or two ago.
There go the funds for weekend entertainment where the fine Colombian flows freely. And one isn’t referring to Juan Valdez in this case.
The economic priorities on display reveal a peculiar hierarchy of needs where basic work requirements constitute unbearable oppression, yet discretionary spending remains sacrosanct. This is the curious mathematics of modern entitlement, where a roughly $40 investment in several work-appropriate shirts represents financial ruin, but $7 daily expenditures on avocado toast somehow fit comfortably within the budget.
Starbucks Workers United, having found its cause célèbre in the tyranny of black cotton, now demands minimum wages of $20 per hour for baristas and $25.40 for shift supervisors. This, for a job that involves operating machinery designed specifically for ease of use and requires the reading and writing of customer names with varying degrees of accuracy.
The coffee corporation, no stranger to progressive posturing, now finds itself caught in the contradictions of contemporary capitalism, having cultivated an image of enlightened corporate citizenship only to discover that its workforce expects actual distribution of the company’s wealth. There is a certain poetic justice in watching a corporation that built its brand partly on social consciousness now discovering that its employees have taken these values to their logical conclusion.
Reflect.
Does pulling espresso shots or prepping the various options of coffee-adjacent offerings warrant compensation approaching that of emergency medical technicians? Is the act of steaming milk genuinely comparable to saving lives?
America once understood the relationship between skill, contribution, and compensation. Today, that framework lies in ruins, replaced by a system where emotional grievance serves as the primary currency of negotiation. The striking baristas embody this new paradigm, where one’s feelings about workplace requirements carry more weight than the fundamental economics of the transaction between employer and employee.
H.L. Mencken once observed that “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
Today’s labor movement admirably adapts this principle, transforming the benign hobgoblin of dress codes into a monstrous symbol of corporate oppression.
Lost in this tumult is any recognition of work’s fundamental purpose—to provide goods or services in exchange for compensation. They forget that value creation is paramount.
The transaction should be straightforward: Starbucks offers wages, benefits, and working conditions while employees offer labor, adherence to standards, and customer service.
When either party finds the arrangement unsatisfactory, the relationship can be terminated.
Yet contemporary labor activism has abandoned the clear notion of providing value to customers in favor of emotional appeals and inflated grievances. The striking baristas present themselves not as economic actors making rational choices but as victims of systematic oppression, linking their plight to the genuinely exploited workers of previous generations who faced genuine danger, destitution, and deprivation.
The comparison insults the memory of those who fought for meaningful workplace protection. Coal miners who battled for safety regulations while sacrificing their own lungs and factory workers who demanded protection from dangerous machinery while offering limbs to their cause, would scarcely recognize their struggle in the complaints of those protesting the color of their shirts.
This absurd conflict reveals something more profound about America. This is now a population that is losing its sense of proportion, resilience, and self-reliance. When the requirement to wear black shirts triggers mass walkouts, one must question what has become of the national character that once prided itself on overcoming genuine adversity.
The striking baristas exemplify a generation taught that personal comfort outweighs professional obligation, that subjective feelings trump objective standards, and that basic workplace requirements constitute oppression rather than reasonable expectations. They embrace victimhood as identity and grievance as purpose.
This coffee clash will eventually resolve, as all such disputes do, with minor concessions and the resumption of business. Starbucks may offer a uniform stipend or additional free shirts.
The baristas will declare victory and return to misspelling names on cups. The green aprons will once again hang over black shirts, and customers will continue overpaying for beverages that occasionally resemble coffee.
But something valuable will have been lost. Another small piece of a collective understanding gone missing within a society that once recognized the basic dignity of meeting reasonable workplace standards without histrionic protest.
Furthermore, such an understanding once recognized that employment represents a mutual agreement rather than a platform for perpetual grievance.
The next time one encounters a striking barista lamenting the tyranny of black shirts, consider asking about the hardback novel tucked under their arm, try surveying their plans for the weekend, or query them about what’s on sale at the local dispensary. The answers will reveal more about this labor dispute than all the union press releases combined.
In the grand tradition of American protest, these crusaders for chromatic freedom fall short of the men disguised as Mohawks in 1773. To this day, the actions of this courageous lot from the “Boston Tea Party” are what led to most Americans preferring coffee over tea.
But in a nation that has lost its sense of perspective, this is “rebellion” in its devolved state. It is a tempest in a coffee cup that signifies nothing.