A former Starbucks employee is suing the coffee chain, saying he was wrongly terminated after confronting robbers at his store.
NBC St. Louis affiliate KSDK reports 20-year-old Michael Harris was working a drive-thru shift in December when he said two men entered the store and began frisking customers.
When the two men demanded cash from the register, Harris said, he tried to open it. At that point, one of the robbers hit him on the head with a gun.
“I thought I was gonna die that day … they walked in, announced that it was a robbery,” Harris recalled, according to the station.
He said he felt emboldened to stand his ground when he realized the gun was fake, the station reported, noticing that the trigger had fallen off.
“That’s when we noticed and started to fight back,” Harris said.
Eventually, one of the men took off; Harris and another coworker were able to restrain the other until police arrived, the station said.
But weeks after the incident, Harris said he got a call saying he was being fired.
“They terminated me,” he said. “They didn’t really give me a reason why I was terminated. They just told me I was, and I just had to accept it.”
In a statement, Starbucks said all employees “are expected to follow our carefully crafted protocols to ensure the safety of customers and partners during these situations.”
The company said all employees go through de-escalation training, which includes armed-robbery scenarios where employees are asked to comply with demands and to avoid doing or saying anything that could escalate the situation.
Harris and his attorneys said Starbucks’ policy is unfair.
“There’s no way that an individual can be faced with danger, attempted potential death of themselves or another, and then once they’ve been hit or downed, that they cannot defend themselves,” Attorney Ryan Krupp said.
The incident echoes one last summer that saw Lululemon terminate employees at one of the chain’s outlets after they confronted robbers.
The National Retail Federation said in a statement Thursday that acts of violence have no place in retail stores.
“The number one priority for retailers is ensuring the safety and security of both customers and workers,” it said, noting retailers provide their teams with trainings like Starbucks’ to prevent or de-escalate situations that may result in confrontation, and that partnerships with law enforcement are also designed to help resolve such incidents.
“Threats, violence and protest will not deter a retailer’s commitment to protecting the health and safety of the customers they serve and the people they employ,” the Federation said.
But the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) said in a statement that while retail workers should never be asked to directly confront a shoplifter, “there’s tons of nuance to each situation and a simple ‘don’t fight back’ is not enough.”
“Workers need to be trained in addressing all the various forms of risks they could encounter,” the group, which does not represent Harris said. “‘Don’t fight back’ is not training. Workers need to be trained.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
