(Bloomberg) — Starbucks Corp. has refused to negotiate in good faith at more than 100 newly unionized cafes, US labor board prosecutors alleged in a complaint.
(Bloomberg) — Starbucks Corp. has refused to negotiate in good faith at more than 100 newly unionized cafes, US labor board prosecutors alleged in a complaint.
The coffee chain has illegally “failed and refused” to collectively bargain fairly at 144 sites. Those include the first two cafes to unionize with Starbucks Workers United, the National Labor Relations Board’s Seattle regional director said. At those two locations, both in upstate New York, the agency alleges that Starbucks “bargained with no intention of reaching agreement” with the union, including by “insisting upon proposals that are predictably unacceptable to the union,” and “demeaning and otherwise undermining the union’s chosen representatives,” according to a filing Tuesday.
In an emailed statement, Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull said the union has “consistently engaged in conduct that has unnecessarily delayed progress toward first contracts.”
“We will continue to negotiate in good faith,” former chief executive officer Howard Schultz testified last month before a US Senate committee.
Complaints issued by NLRB prosecutors are considered by agency judges, whose rulings can be appealed to labor board members in Washington DC, and from there into federal court. Regional NLRB directors have issued more than 80 complaints against Starbucks, accusing the company of illegal anti-union tactics including threats, store shutdowns and terminations of dozens of activists. The company has said that all claims of anti-union activity are “categorically false.” The agency has the authority to order companies to change their behavior but not to issue punitive damages for violations.
Starbucks Workers United has prevailed in elections at 300 of the company’s roughly 9,000 corporate-run US cafes, starting with initial victories in late 2021. None of those locations has yet come close to securing a collective bargaining agreement with the company.
(Updates with Starbucks comment in third paragraph.)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.