On Tuesday, Starbucks fired several leaders of an organizing drive at a Memphis, Tennessee store, one of more than fifty locations nationwide that are unionizing. Starbucks Workers United says that the company fired seven workers, “virtually the entire union leadership after they spoke to the media.”

A Starbucks spokesman told the New York Times that the workers were fired for violating company safety and security policies, citing a photograph of a journalist inside a store apparently after hours, which the spokesman described as a violation of company policy. But workers allege that the terminations were retaliatory.

“Being fired for ‘policies’ that I have never heard of. Never been talked to about before. Never had a write up about and all of a sudden it’s an offense to get fired over!” said one of the workers who was fired on Tuesday morning. “This is an outrage! They are firing the entire committee!”