SALT LAKE CITY — Employees of the SunTrapp, a long-standing LGBTQ bar in downtown Salt Lake City, are entering their third week of a strike over wanting to unionize.
Morgan Sturgill, who is participating in the strike, said the talk of unionizing started over the summer.
“There's been a couple of scenarios where if we had talked about what we wanted before, there was a chance of being demoted, or chance of being let go or just being treated differently afterwards. So it was primarily for that protection,” Sturgill said. “But honestly, the biggest one is policies. A lot of us just want clear guidelines for discipline, a clear employee's handbook.”
Sturgill said earlier this month they had a meeting with the owner.
“About two hours after that meeting, we had all received text messages stating that we had been terminated. Everybody that was in there, in the meeting itself, and anybody that she had thought was associated,” Sturgill explained. "It was resended, so we all ended up going back to work. But it kind of set this precedent for realizing that I think she was going to try and get rid of us from there. After that, we had all started receiving our final write-ups. Most of us had not received any sort of write-up before."
On Oct. 3, they decided to go on strike.
“I am, I believe, still technically employed with the SunTrapp. However, there has been a couple of moves that have made it so I'm not able to actually go in. I've been taken off all of the messaging apps... so I'm not able to see a schedule,” Sturgill said.
On Oct. 10, the bar’s owner posted a nearly 20-minute video explaining her side of the conflict to SunTrapp’s social media pages.
“When my staff approached me, I hate to admit it, but very ignorant to the process of private unionizations for small companies. Didn't really have a good grasp on what that was, what the process was,” said owner Mary Peterson.
Peterson went on to explain why employees were initially terminated.
“I was met with media. I felt very, very threatened. I didn't know if they were trying to do a hostile takeover or what was going on. And so, I will admit I made a huge mistake, again in an effort to keep the bar safe and thriving, I did fire them because I felt like they were a threat to the business,” Peterson said. "Once I realized that that wasn't something I could do after they gave me those papers, I had to hire them back. Legally, I would have had to hire them back anyways.”
Utah law states:
"It is not unlawful for employees to organize themselves into or carry on labor unions for the purpose of lessening hours of labor, increasing wages, bettering the conditions of members, or carrying out the legitimate purposes of such organizations as freely as they could do if acting singly.”
In the video, Peterson said everything is now going through legal counsel, and Sturgill said they have not heard from her since.
“Her lawyer got in contact with our union's lawyer. The only thing the lawyer said was that the strikes would have to end in order for there to be negotiations,” Sturgill said.
Peterson said the picketing that has been happening outside her business has put SunTrapp in danger.
“SunTrapp is in imminent danger, the strikes and the protests and blocking my entrance and making patrons feel unsafe to come in is extremely detrimental to the business. Again, I'm not rich. My profit margins aren't huge. I can't withstand this for more than two more weeks,” Peterson said.
FOX 13 News made several attempts to get in touch with Peterson for an updated comment but did not receive a response.
Sturgill said while the workers all enjoy the community SunTrapp brings, they just wanted to fight for stricter policies and more accountability. Until then, they’re not budging.
“We are just going to continue to be on strike until the demands, our base demands, get met. After that, my hope is that we can actually go to the bargaining table and really negotiate. It's not going to be like, 'OK, all of these things need to be done exactly this way.' It's going to be a talk with the owner to be like: 'What ways can we improve things? What ways can we work together?'” Sturgill said.
They will continue to picket every Friday and Saturday night from 10:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.
