{"id":668019,"date":"2022-05-23T17:57:11","date_gmt":"2022-05-23T17:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=e046d70727451a9489447b23a87b1034"},"modified":"2022-05-23T17:57:11","modified_gmt":"2022-05-23T17:57:11","slug":"nlrb-starbucks-must-recognize-union-in-store-after-violating-law-over-200-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/05\/23\/nlrb-starbucks-must-recognize-union-in-store-after-violating-law-over-200-times\/","title":{"rendered":"NLRB: Starbucks Must Recognize Union in Store After Violating Law Over 200 Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a rare decision, a labor official has filed an order to force Starbucks to recognize a union in the first store to lose its union election, potentially undoing one of the company\u2019s only wins in the roughly nine months of its workers\u2019 union campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

Linda Leslie, Buffalo-based regional director of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), <\/span>argued<\/span><\/a> that a union at the Camp Road location in Buffalo should be recognized and that the company should begin the bargaining process with the store\u2019s workers, just as it has in unionized locations. Leslie is seeking a bargaining order, an <\/span>uncommon<\/span><\/a> move that the board only uses in the most egregious cases of union busting.<\/span><\/p>\n

A bargaining order is one of the most forceful moves that the NLRB can take against an anti-union company, and stands in stark contrast to the otherwise weak remedies that the board has the option to pursue. The fact that the NLRB is seeking such a rare order is a show of the ferocity and recklessness with which Starbucks has been responding to the workers\u2019 union campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

The filing states that \u201cserious and substantial\u201d misconduct \u201cis such that there is only a slight possibility of traditional remedies erasing [the violations\u2019] effects and conducting a fair election. Therefore, on balance, the employees\u2019 sentiments regarding representation, having been expressed through authorization cards, would be protected better by issuance of a bargaining order for the Camp Road store.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, workers said that the order could give them the union they had originally wanted. \u201cWhen we filed for an election last fall, we had 85 percent support in our store,\u201d said Williams Westlake, a Camp Road barista, in a statement. \u201cStarbucks, in their pursuit of making sure not a single one of their 9000 locations would exercise its right to unionize, destroyed the democratic process.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If a judge agrees to the order at a hearing on July 11, in which the labor official lists over 200 violations of labor laws, it would be a huge win for the union. Camp Road was <\/span>one of the first three stores<\/span><\/a> to have its election ballots counted in December. For months after the store lost its union election, it <\/span>was the only<\/span><\/a> loss for Starbucks Workers United; even now, with <\/span>over 80 unionized stores<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>over 250<\/span><\/a> union filings, only roughly <\/span>10 other stores<\/span><\/a> have voted against unionizing.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the order request, the company has retaliated against pro-union workers and organizers by banning workers from stores, cutting hours, issuing warnings and firing pro-union workers. The company <\/span>denies all of the allegations<\/span><\/a> in the filing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pro-union workers celebrated the filing, saying that they hope it will provide much-needed relief after the company\u2019s harsh union busting.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe NLRB choosing to pursue a bargaining order at Camp Road is nothing short of exceptional. The partners at this location have been subjected to some of the most aggressive union-busting seen in recent years,\u201d said Gianna Reeve, a shift supervisor in the Camp Road store. \u201cThis is the first step for partners at my store to finally receive justice for what they have gone through.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Latest - Truthout<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Requests for bargaining orders are rare, and the move is a show of how egregious Starbucks\u2019s union busting has been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1459,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[453,11259,17202,4,12724,18062,47355,8432],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668019"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":668020,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668019\/revisions\/668020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}