The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is taking Starbucks’ union-busting campaign very seriously. The board’s regional director in Buffalo issued a complaint late Friday accusing the company of 29 unfair labor practices involving 200 violations of the law.
The complaint specifically names interim CEO Howard Schultz for dangling improved benefits if workers didn’t unionize, and calls on Schultz or Executive Vice President Rossann Williams to make clear to workers what their rights are—the very rights that Starbucks has so dramatically been trampling on—as well as calling for the company to provide “equal time to address employees if they are convened by [Starbucks] for ‘captive audience’ meetings.” The complaint also calls on Starbucks to reinstate seven fired workers, with back pay.
The NLRB complaint also points to Starbucks closing stores in Buffalo as workers started organizing, retaliatory discipline and firings of union supporters, and “unprecedented and repeated” visits by top national executives to the Buffalo stores.
”Starbucks has been saying that no union-busting ever occurred in Buffalo. Today, the NLRB sets the record straight. The complaint confirms the extent and depravity of Starbucks’ conduct in Western New York for the better part of a year,” Starbucks Workers United said in a statement. “Starbucks will be held accountable for the union-busting minefield they forced workers to walk through in fighting for their right to organize. This Complaint fully unmasks Starbucks’ façade as a ‘progressive company’ and exposes the truth of Howard Schultz’s anti-union war.”
“Starbucks is finally being held accountable for the union-busting rampage they went on.”
– Former Starbucks Employee, Danny Rojas.
”Starbucks is finally being held accountable for the union-busting rampage they went on,” said fired Buffalo Shift Supervisor Danny Rojas—one of the seven whose reinstatement the complaint calls for—in the statement. “It is disappointing that Starbucks has refused to work with their partners and instead chose to fire union leaders like myself. Today, the NLRB is validating that the psychological warfare and intimidation tactics that took place in Starbucks stores was unacceptable. Starbucks needs to understand that it is morally corrupt to retaliate against union leaders and I am looking forward to the NLRB forcing Starbucks to make this moment right.”
Despite this aggressive and often illegal anti-union campaign, Starbucks workers have voted to unionize at more than 50 stores so far.
If Starbucks doesn’t settle—which a statement from a company spokesman indicated would not happen—the complaint will go to trial.
This blog originally appeared at Daily Kos on May 9, 2022. Reprinted with permission.
About the author: Laura Clawson has been a Daily Kos contributing editor since December 2006. Full-time staff since 2011, currently assistant managing editor.
