The New York Times reports that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is arguing that Starbucks illegally closed 23 stores because of unionization activity, the company should be forced by the courts to reopen all of those units.
According to the NLRB complaint, at least seven of the 23 stores had actually unionized, while the others had been the subject of organizing activity.
The Times writes that “the agency’s move is the latest in a series of accusations by federal officials that Starbucks has broken the law during a two-year labor campaign.
“The case is scheduled to go before an administrative judge next summer unless Starbucks settles it earlier. In addition to asking the judge to order the stores reopened, the complaint wants employees to be compensated for the loss of earnings or benefits and for other costs they incurred as a result of the closures.”
A Starbucks spokesman tells the Times that “’each year as a standard course of business, we evaluate the store portfolio’ and typically open, close or alter stores. The company said it opened hundreds of new stores last year and closed more than 100, of which about 3 percent were unionized.”
KC’s View:
Not entirely sure how this would work, especially if those locations actually have rented out to other businesses.
That said, I’m less interested in the percentage of total closed stores that were unionized than I am in the percentage of unionized stores that were closed.
Interestingly, the Seattle Times has a different story about Starbucks’ anti-union positions:
“Starbucks doesn’t have written anti-union guidelines, but it can improve its guidance on collective bargaining commitments and better train its employees to uphold bargaining rights, a third-party report concluded Wednesday.
“The report, commissioned by Starbucks’ board of directors, said the company wasn’t initially prepared for the unionization wave that started in 2021 and didn’t have the processes in place to appropriately respond. But the report largely absolved the Seattle-based coffee chain of anti-union claims.
“The unpreparedness for the unionization wave doesn’t mean the company has an anti-union playbook, the report said.”
“Written” strikes me as the key word in this assessment – you can have a playbook without it actually being a book. And forgive me if I am a little mite skeptical about a study commissioned by Starbucks’ board, even if it is by a so-called “third party.”
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