Three employees were fired and about 15 were temporarily suspended at the Safeway in Polson over a disagreement about coffee discounts at the Starbucks kiosk.
The firings took place in late July, according to former employees. On July 17, nine employees who work at the store’s Starbucks were asked to attend a meeting where management confronted them about giving discounts to other Safeway personnel. At the end of the meeting, two of the baristas resigned and others were suspended until the investigation was over. Ten days later kiosk manager Naomi Hartman and two others were terminated.
“They called it an interview, but it was more like an interrogation,” Hartman said.
Hartman worked for Safeway in Polson and Missoula for nearly five years. She was the manager at the Starbucks kiosk for a year and was getting ready to transfer back to the Missoula branch. Hartman first took the job because she needed the health benefits for her two children.
At the July 17 meeting, employees who worked at the Safeway-operated coffee stand were asked about giving discounts on coffee to other employees and including extra shots of espresso in customers’ drinks, according to Hartman. She said both were standard practices and that it was how she was trained.
During the meeting, headed up by members of Safeway’s Loss Prevention Team, she and the others were asked to sign statements acknowledging that they had provided discounted coffee to co-workers. Kristen Funke, one of two people who resigned during the meeting, said she signed an agreement that she would not visit a Safeway for a year and that she would pay back $2,214 for discounted coffee. The following day, Funke’s parents called a Safeway manager to say it was unfair for their daughter to pay such a fee. The manager agreed and, according to Funke, told her to disregard the agreement.
Safeway spokesperson Sara Osborne said any theft by a company employee results in immediate termination.
“They violated company policy and they admitted that they violated company policy,” Osborne said.
Osborne said any employee who was unaware of the company’s no-discount policy was not terminated.
But Hartman saw it differently and said the investigation was unfair. She said management should have come to her first about ending the discounts. More than the loss of her job, Hartman said she was disappointed to leave her regular patrons.
“I saw it as my place, my shop. I worked hard to build something,” she said. “It was like Cheers. We knew everyone’s name and knew their drink and it was ripped out of my hands. “