The union campaign at Starbucks has organized roughly 80 stores around the country in a matter of months, winning the majority of elections that have been held so far. The campaign was defeated at only a few stores where workers voted against a union.
It looks like one of his few victories may end up in the loss column.
An official with the National Labor Relations Board requested that Starbucks be ordered to bargain with the union at a store in the Buffalo, New York, area where the union lost an election last year. The company should have to recognize the union and negotiate after the official argued that Starbucks ruined the process with illegal tactics and that holding a do-over election wouldn't cut it.
The labor board rarely requests such requests, but it shows how bad Starbucks behavior was in western New York.
It was a long road to get here and very frustrating to face a company that repeatedly violated labor law to force workers to vote.
The bargaining order request is part of a complaint against Starbucks. The company terminated half a dozen pro-union workers, closed stores and changed work policies as it battled the organizing campaign in New York, according to the filing.
“It was a really long road to get here and very frustrating to face a company that repeatedly violated labor law.”
- Barista Will Westlake
The complaint was filed without the request for a bargaining order. The amended complaint was filed Thursday.
An administrative law judge will decide if Starbucks should have to bargain with workers at the store on Camp Road in New York. The process could take a long time.
Workers at the Camp Road store voted against unionizing in one of the first elections for the campaign. A bargaining order would allow the store to be unionized. It would serve as a big symbolic victory for the union campaign, which believes that Starbucks can win without playing dirty.
The company denied all the allegations in the complaint and said it would present its evidence when it was ready.
There have been 94 ballot counts for Starbucks elections. The results are not definitive in another six. Some election results have been challenged.
The general counsel of the labor board has laid out an aggressive agenda that would crack down on companies that try to break unions. Abruzzo said she will try to use bargaining orders more often when she believes they are needed. When an atmosphere of intimidation is created by an employer, officials can seek them.
The firing of union supporters and other forms of retaliation make it so that traditional remedies won't work in the case of Camp Road, according to the complaint. She says Starbucks should bargain because workers made their desire to unionize clear by signing union cards.
According to the complaint, Starbucks tried to chill union support by permanently closing one store in the area and temporarily closing another, which was later reopened as a training center.
Richard Bensinger argued that the closings were meant to have a broad effect.
He said that it was designed to scare people all over the country.
The workers from one of the closed stores were transferred to Camp Road because they were leery of voting for the union. He thinks the Camp Road vote was affected by the closure.
They all said that we tried to organize and they shut down our store. Starbucks tried to run a campaign at Camp Road.
Starbucks executive Rossann Williams spent weeks in Buffalo last year while workers were organizing, as she and other managers tried to sway them against the union. In her complaint, she says that either Williams or Shultz should have to read a script and stand in the presence of a board official that tells workers their rights have been violated, or have the video made available to stores around the country.
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