This just in: blue-haired, genderless Starbucks employees are Literally Dying after being told they must wear - and let me check my notes here - plain black shirts under their green barista aprons.
Cue the horror.
Employees of the Seattle-based, overpriced coffee chain have been up in arms for weeks over the company’s new dress code, which now requires all employees to wear a solid black shirt with pants in either black, khaki or blue denim. The new uniform rules are a slight change from the former policy, which allowed employees to wear shirts in several muted, neutral tones and related patterns.
Starbucks said the new dress code is an effort to bring cohesion across all their stores. The company currently operates more than 35,000 stores globally, including about 16,000 in the United States. The company also said it will be providing two free shirts to each employee to help offset the cost of having to buy new clothes to meet the updated standards.
But the disgruntled children who’re unhappy that they’ll have to obey their employers’ mandate to wear a black t-shirt while slinging burnt house brew and artificially-flavored mochas have launched a full-scale bashlash against the company over the new policy, with one upset Frappuccino-blender complaining this week that Starbucks is literally "imperiling every civil right that we have" by limiting their freedom of expression and telling them what they must wear while on the job.
Starbucks employees currently on strike are now claiming that Starbucks is "imperiling every single civil right they have" by implementing a dress code at their company.pic.twitter.com/w3Yodrhcxe
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 19, 2025
Every single one, you guys.
“All of our rights are in danger, and the only thing we can really rely on is each other and taking direct action and solidarity," he said at an anti-Starbucks protest.
Related: Starbucks Workers Blast the New Company Dress Code, Saying It Limits 'Personal Expression'
Roughly 1,200 employees staged a walkout last week after the new dress code rules took effect - not that anyone, including Starbucks, even noticed, given that the temper tantrum affected less than 1 percent of the coffee chain’s locations.
Last week, the dress code change took effect and sparked a walk-out for more than 1,000 employees, who believe the policy worsens an understaffing crisis at Starbucks locations.
But Starbucks seems to be relatively unaffected, as the walk-outs affected less than 1 percent of its stores.
