The union representing nearly 9,000 Starbucks baristas expressed “solidarity with Palestine” after Hamas terrorists massacred more than 1,200 Israelis — triggering calls to boycott the coffee giant.
Starbucks Workers United — which is based in Buffalo, NY, and represents 340 Starbucks locations across the US — posted the message on X to its nearly 100,000 followers on Tuesday.
“Solidarity with Palestine!” the union tweeted.
SWU has since deleted the controversial post, though its account “liked” a tweet by one its members that says: “Once again, free Palestine.”
Florida Sen. Rick Scott blasted the union for its tone-deaf tweets and called for a boycott of the Seattle-based chain, which has more than 16,000 locations nationwide.
“This is disgusting. Every American should condemn the atrocities that Iran-backed Hamas terrorists committed in Israel,” Scott wrote on the site formerly known as Twitter.
“Boycott Starbucks until its leadership strongly denounces and takes action against this horrific support of terrorism.”
Starbucks moved swiftly to distance itself from the union, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which has more than two million members working across a range of industries in the US and Canada.
“We unequivocally condemn acts of terrorism, hate and violence, and disagree with the statements and views expressed by Workers United and its members. Workers United’s words and actions belong to them, and them alone,” the company said.
SWU and SEIU “do not represent the company’s views, positions or beliefs,” it added.
When The Post reached out to SWU for comment, the union pointed to a statement by SEIU president Mary Kay Henry, who tweeted: “The violence in Israel and Palestine is unconscionable. @SEUI stands with all who are suffering, while strongly condemning anti-Semitism, Islamophobia & hate in all forms. I pray for a swift resolution and a future where all in the region can be happy, safe & live with dignity.”
One of SWU’s founding organizers, Jaz Brisack, has previously voiced support for Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who was involved in bombings in Jerusalem in 1969 and 1970.
Brisack penned an op-ed in The Daily Mississippian in 2017 that referred to Odeh as a “political prisoner.”
He also called Odeh and her fellow members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — deemed a terrorist organization by the US in 1997 — “freedom fighters,” according to The Washington Free Beacon.
Odeh was freed by Israel as part of a prisoner exchange in 1980 but arrested in the US in 2013 after illegally entering the country in the 1990s. She was deported to Jordan in 2017.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
