it’s not the unions fault

if anything blame corporate for ass kissing their customers and not enough support for their employees

You’re never “allowed” to by corporate

DMs will let it happen at their discretion. If there’s a lot of union activity in your area, they’re more likely to say you can’t decorate as a union busting tactic

My store was also told that we are unable to decorate, and I've heard from many partners that this is not just an isolated thing. I imagine it's to "avoid controversy", kinda like when they told us we couldn't enforce masks because partners were being assaulted.

Same at my store. Which literally killed a little part of my soul. I was allowed to decorate for pride but our new SM said we can't do any decor anymore. Other than the chalk board we cant do anything.
It's like the one fun and creative thing I look forward to. I love decorating and making it festive.
My old store in Cali decorated for Halloween and it's so fucking cute. That store is so fun I miss it....
I also HATE how inconsistent these fucking rules are.

I think it depends on your store and district. To be honest, the company has super strict guidelines on signs and other decor, especially post pandejo, I wouldn't be surprised if this were true now. But our district was allowed "minimal decorations" that were easy to remove and had to be approved by the DM. They also had to be easy to clean and dust. That being said, I am a Canadian partner but being with the company 11 years.. I've seen the downfall of the fun too and it's disappointing as heck and in my area there's no unions at all so I'm not sure if that's anything to do with it.

This is just another one of those things that, after 9 years with the company, make me ask, "Is Starbucks about to collapse in on itself?"

I think it is a district/store-to-store thing honestly. The first store I worked at always decorated and still decorates for the seasons with general decorations such as pumpkins in fall or a pride flag made out of hearts during pride month. The store I am at now the SM said that she is sticking by siren's eye and following standard because the other is a lot of work and is a waste of labor.