Portland Burgerville Workers Serve ‘Abolish ICE’ Message, Much To Company’s Discomfort

Look for the union label.

There’s a new beef at Burgerville. And it’s all about buttons.

A budding dispute over political paraphernalia in the workplace has become a sticking point between the regional fast-food chain and members of an employee-led union seeking a boost in pay and other perks.

Ten Burgerville workers at the Northeast Glisan Street and 82nd Avenue location were sent home for the day late last month after they refused to remove buttons on their uniforms proclaiming “Abolish ICE” and “No One Is Illegal,” a decision the company said violated a newly minted policy.

Yet one day later, Burgerville decided to place the rule on hold. The employees received back pay and returned to work, where they’ve continued to promote causes that have left the company — and, it says, some customers — uneasy.

The friction comes as Burgerville attempts to negotiate a contract with workers at two of the chain’s 42 locations, who made history this spring when they voted to form a federally recognized union.

Suddenly, a type of restaurant flair famously satirized in the comedy “Office Space” is a chip on the bargaining table that also includes $5-an-hour raises, paid holidays and health care for all workers.

“We see the workplace as a central realm for combating white supremacy and anti-immigrant sentiment,” said Emmet Schlenz, a spokesman for the Burgerville Workers Union, which launched in 2016 with help from members of the Industrial Workers of the World — better known as the Wobblies.

Few, if any, retail or service industry chains allow T-shirts, pins or other items that promote politics in the workplace. And Burgerville has “had a long-standing non-written policy” against outside buttons of any kind, the company said in a statement.

Nevertheless, employees active in the Burgeverville Workers Union had worn an array of political buttons with little fuss from management over the last several months, including those with messages opposed to fascism, police brutality and the Trump administration’s immigration policies, Schlenz said.

But the permitted use of buttons by workers became a flashpoint this summer when employees from the Southeast Powell and 92nd Avenue and Gladstone stores, which had recently held successful union drives, included it among their list of proposals to the company.

Representatives for Burgerville balked at the button proposal, fearful that some political messages could be “too controversial,” the union said.

The company said it made no mention of buttons being controversial, but did express concern that they could confuse customers about whose opinion they represented.

Workers at the Glisan and 82nd Avenue store, which is active in the Burgerville Workers Union but does not have a seat at the bargaining table, decided to respond by wearing the “Abolish ICE” and “No One Is Illegal” buttons.

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