The National Labor Relations Board is seeking to ask Starbucks to recognize unions at a Buffalo-area store where The union has lost an initial vote last year.
The move is part of a larger effort by the board to scrutinize the coffee chain’s response to a nationwide union campaign. In a revised complaint against the company, the agency on Thursday accused Starbucks of threatening and retaliating against workers seeking to unite.
Matthew Bodie, a former labor council attorney who teaches law at St. Louis. “Complaints send a message,” Mr. Bodie added.
Workers have voted to unionize at more than 70 Starbucks stores since December, and they have filed petitions for union elections at more than 150 other cafes. Starbucks owns and operates approximately 9,000 stores in the United States.
The regional offices of the labor council brought up the complaint after it was found that there was merit in charging the employer or the union. Complaints are filed before an administrative law judge and the judge’s decisions can be appealed to the national labor council in Washington.
Buffalo supervisory regional office make the original complaint two weeks ago accused Starbucks of firing employees because they supported unions; promising benefits to workers as a way to discourage them from uniting; threaten workers who seek to unite by putting them under surveillance; and other illegal acts.
The labor council noted that workers at the store, known as Camp Road, had expressed their desire to unionize and that there was little chance a fair election could be held.
“Therefore, on balance, employee sentiment regarding representation, already expressed through the authorization card, would be better protected by issuing a bargaining order to the Camp Road store. ,” the complaint states.
The revised complaint also accuses the company of “packaging” another Buffalo-area store with outside employees in preparation for union elections last fall. However, the union won an election at that store.
“The NLRB’s choice to pursue a bargain order at Camp Road is nothing special,” Gianna Reeve, a shift supervisor at the store, said in a statement. “Partners at this site have suffered some of the most aggressive alliance vandalism seen in recent years.”
Starbucks said in a statement that the complaint was not a ruling by the labor board. “We believe the allegations in the file of the NLRB regional director are untrue and we look forward to presenting our evidence when the allegations are heard,” the company said.
