Few American companies strive to project a warm and welcoming image when interacting with customers and employees like Starbucks.
It may have ended last week with a ruling by a National Labor Relations Board judge citing the coffeehouse chain for “hundreds of unfair labor practices” amounting to “flagrant and widespread malpractice demonstrating general disregard for workers’ fundamental rights.”
Administrative Judge Michael Rosas’ decision concerned the company’s response to an organizing effort by Starbucks Workers United, a subsidiary of Service Employees International Union, in Buffalo, NY
This region became the epicenter of a movement that has now successfully held union ballots at 289 of the company’s approximately 9,000 locations.
A condemnation of anti-union movements as uncompromising as Rosas’ 218-page March 1 ruling or the extraordinary legal remedies he has imposed against the company should be widely viewed.
These include directing Starbucks to pay back dozens of Buffalo-area employees whom Rosas has laid off due to union activity and to pay back wages to many more whose hours have been cut, allegedly for participating in or supporting union organizations, and the reopening of at least one location that had reportedly closed. closed to unionization.
Most notably, Rosa Howard ordered Schultz and Denise Nelson, the company’s senior vice president of US operations, to read (or have them read in their presence) a 13-page statement. describing workers’ union rights in which they have been violated and any legal remedies it provides.
The notice must also be posted at every Starbucks location, where it can be viewed by employees, whom the company always refers to as “affiliates.”
It’s strong medicine for Schultz, who is in his third term as CEO. (He will step down from his position this month, but will remain on the board.) After receiving an invitation to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Schultz agreed to appear when the committee chair, Bernie Sanders (I- Vt.) threatened with a subpoena. Schultz’s testimony is scheduled for March 29.
The company insisted that Schultz was not involved in union affairs at Starbucks, but that is nonsense. The anti-union attitude at Starbucks must be overcome. As we reported in April, after being appointed “interim CEO” in March 2022, he became the face and voice of the company’s fierce counterattack on unionization.
Schultz appeared in videotaped presentations at City Hall and put his name on written notices to workers and managers. There, and in group meetings with employees across the country, he repeatedly described unions as a threat to the company’s economy and culture.
“External unions are trying to sell a very different view of what Starbucks should be,” he wrote in an open letter posted April 10 on the company’s website. Employees “support union organization, work with external union forces. … I don’t think conflict, division and disagreement – which the unions have focused on – will benefit Starbucks or our partners.”
Starbucks also hired Littler Mendelson, a law firm that prides itself on advising companies “on developing and implementing strategies to legally avoid unions.”
This includes advising management on “accurate and compliant communications to employees…including bulletin boards and posters, take-home letters, meeting materials, testimonial videos, social media posts, handouts, and campaign websites.”
Rosas’ decision is being reviewed by the National Labor Relations Board, which has a Biden-appointed Democratic majority and a Biden-appointed General Counsel, a powerful administrative post after years under the control of an anti-union majority of Trump and General Council.
The order could be challenged by Starbucks, which said it will seek “further legal review”. Rosas’ ruling applies to 20 locations in the Buffalo area and one in Rochester, NY
What’s fascinating about the ruling is how the judge laid out the roadmap of methods, from the subtle to the naked, followed by employers determined to destroy unions in the modern age. Many of these masquerade as polite attempts to encourage collaboration and cooperation between management and employees, but are nonetheless illegal.
The company emailed me: “We believe the decision and the remedies ordered are inadequate given the evidence on this matter and are considering all options to seek further legal review.”
Judging by Rosas’ descriptions, Starbucks followed the anti-union script to the letter. Union militants advise management to paint the unions as “outsiders”, saying they would disrupt the smooth running of the company or even bankrupt it, and that the unions would make it impossible for workers to deal directly with the negotiations of management to go.
The company “entered the Buffalo market with an exceptional number of company officials, executives and others,” held “listening sessions” with groups of local employees to hear their views on adverse working conditions and to promise, sometimes implicitly, to remedy the situation, noted Rose up. Schultz personally attended some of these meetings.
On the surface, these were responsible requests from management. But none of them happened before Buffalo workers announced the first-ever unionization with a tweet and open letter on August 23, 2021 to then-CEO Kevin Johnson.
The letter shocked management because NLRB standards state that provoking grievances or promising benefits during a union campaign is illegal because it “improperly influences personnel decisions” and “could be timed.”
Starbucks also announced a company-wide salary increase; because it came after the open letter, Rosas found it “tempting,” especially as staff complained about pay during the listening sessions.
The company took less covert steps to stop union activity. Some union lawyers have been fired or their working hours have been reduced. Some stores where employees clearly showed sympathy for the union were temporarily or permanently closed.
Supervisors worked in factories on an unprecedented scale, leading workers to believe they were being monitored for union activity.
Some of the company’s actions were downright cynical. After employees at a store complained of chronic understaffing, management flooded the location with new and transferred employees. This led to overcrowding behind the counter and operational chaos, while the percentage of incumbent employees who were tipped and the percentage of pro-union votes in the store declined.
The company’s efforts “had the intended effect,” Rosas noted, citing the sharp drop in union support at a store where 16 workers signed union permit cards in the first week of the organizing campaign, but only eight signed the union after expiration of time supported votes were counted.
After successful union votes in several stores, contract negotiations with Starbucks have been slow. Rosas then ordered the company to begin collective bargaining at three stores, including the one where he found the anti-union campaign had undermined union support.
Rosas’ judgment underlines the difficulty of unionization. Management has several ways to stop unionization, not always through threats.
Timely wage increases, for example, can greatly dilute the appeal of unions, as they may appear to be expressions of pure corporate goodwill, when in fact they are ploys designed to deprive workers of the long-term say in working conditions that they can only have through collective bargaining.
It’s tempting to see the organizing success of Starbucks Workers United as a harbinger of worker power and the NLRB ruling as a sign that the tide of regulation has finally turned in workers’ favor.
But that would be a mistake. Management still holds most of the cards, encouraged by anti-union laws such as the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.
While union membership rose by 273,000 to 14.3 million last year, union membership has fallen from 10.3% in 2021 to 10.1%.
And it will only take one turn of the presidential voting wheel in 2024 to turn the National Labor Relations Board from a protector of collective bargaining rights back to a fraudulent protector of management prerogatives.
It may be true at this point that “Starbucks is the billboard for union-busting in the United States,” in the words of Starbucks Workers United official Gary Bonadonna Jr. But the battle is far from over.
Source: LA Times