Commitment made in settlement to resolve federal labor charge filed by airport workers’ union, UNITE HERE Local 11

Food service giant HMS Host has been required to allow employees to wear masks with the message “Black Lives Matter” as the result of a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to resolve a federal unfair labor practice charge.

UNITE HERE Local 11, the union representing HMS Host workers at Sky Harbor airport, filed the charge with the NLRB in June alleging that Host management separately directed two Starbucks baristas employed by the company, Victoria Stahl and Scott Matos-Elliott, to remove masks bearing the words “Black Lives Matter” or “BLM,” stating that the masks’ political messaging violated company policy. Stahl and Matos-Elliott had decided to wear the masks as part of an effort to advance racial equity at the company.

A regional office of the NLRB conducted an investigation, finding evidence to support the claim that the company violated workers’ rights. Avoiding a trial, Host agreed to resolve the complaint through a settlement agreement with the agency requiring that it pledge to employees that it will not “tell [them] to remove masks that have Black Lives Matter or BLM printed on them” or otherwise violate workers’ federal labor rights.

The charge is among the first cases in the nation to take on the question of whether workers have a right under federal labor law to wear BLM masks—or other masks with social justice messages—at work. The NLRB recently filed a lawsuit addressing similar issues at Home Depot.

Allegations of discrimination and inequities have featured prominently at Host in recent years. In 2020, UNITE HERE issued a report finding disparities in pay and promotions at Starbucks facilities operated by the company, including a $1.85 median hourly wage gap between Black and white baristas. In December 2020, UNITE HERE Local 11 launched a campaign at Sky Harbor focusing on the complaints of alleged sex and age discrimination against older women workers that are the basis of pending EEOC complaints.

In June 2021, one of the Host employees who was directed to remove a BLM mask, Matos-Elliott, who is gay and mixed-race with Black and Puerto Rican parents, submitted a complaint to the City of Phoenix’s Equal Opportunity Department. The complaint alleged that he had been subjected to bigoted epithets, such “faggot,” “homo,” “dirty sand [N- word],” and “spic,” by guests while at work.

Matos-Elliott stated, “I am glad that the government recognized our right as workers to call for racial equality by wearing BLM masks. Now it is time to make that demand a reality every day in our workplaces.”

UNITE HERE Local 11 is a labor union of more than 32,000 hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona who work in hotels, restaurants, universities, convention centers and airports.

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