A sign is seen as activists attend an event called the Un-Birthday Party and line up for Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz on July 19, 2022 in New York City. Activists gathered near Schultz’s West Village home on his 75th birthday to protest Starbucks’ treatment of workers trying to unionize, as well as Schultz’s recent announcement of the permanent closure of 16 locations .
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Starbucks is asking the federal labor board to suspend all union mail-in elections nationwide, alleging misconduct in the voting process by board personnel and the union that organizes its bartenders.
The Seattle-based coffee giant wrote in a letter to the chairman and general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board on Monday that labor board officials acted inappropriately during an election in the Kansas City area and are likely to have acted similarly in other elections. Starbucks cited an NLRB career professional who approached the company as a whistleblower.
More than 220 Starbucks coffee shops in the US have voted to unionize, according to an NLRB report as of Friday. Another 34 elections have been ordered or are in process, and seven more stores are waiting to set elections.
NLRB spokeswoman Kayla Blado said in a statement to CNBC that the agency has well-established processes for raising challenges related to the handling of election issues and unfair labor practice cases.
“These challenges must be raised in specific files for the particular issues at hand,” Blado said. She said the board does not comment on open cases.
In its statement to CNBC, Starbucks Workers United said Starbucks is trying to divert attention from its anti-union activity and stop the union election.
“Ultimately, this is Starbucks’ latest attempt to manipulate the legal process to their advantage and prevent workers from exercising their fundamental right to organize,” the campaign said.
In addition to requesting a pause in all planned mail-in elections at its U.S. stores, Starbucks is requesting that all future elections be held in person while the allegations can be investigated.
According to Starbucks, NLRB officials allegedly coordinated with union agents to arrange in-person voting at labor board offices during mail-in ballot elections. The company also alleges that Workers United agents were given confidential, real-time information about specific vote counts so the union could target employees who had not yet voted. NLRB and Workers United officials then allegedly coordinated to cover up the activity, the company said.
The Starbucks letter details email correspondence that allegedly took place between union representatives and labor board officials. The company said it was made aware of the content of the emails by the whistleblower.
Starbucks said similar behavior occurred in elections in Seattle and Buffalo, New York.
“Until a full investigation is conducted, it’s anyone’s guess how many elections in how many other regions have been similarly infected,” the company said in the letter.
Under interim CEO Howard Schultz, Starbucks has more aggressively opposed unionization efforts at its locations. So far, the number of unionized coffee shops is a small fraction of the nearly 9,000 coffee shops owned by Starbucks, but the coffee chain has worked to curb union momentum.
For example, Starbucks announced a new round of wage increases in May for contract workers, but said the changes would not apply to union sites, saying they would have to go through the bargaining process. Earlier this month, Workers United formally asked the company to extend wage increases at those locations.
Starbucks is also facing 284 unfair labor practice charges from the union, according to the NLRB. Allegations of the company’s misconduct include allegations that it illegally fired organizers, closed stores or harassed its employees to stop baristas from joining unions. Starbucks has denied all claims of union busting.
The company filed two of its own charges against union organizers in Phoenix and Denver with the labor board. The NLRB rejected Phoenix’s claim, saying there was insufficient evidence that pro-union workers harassed other employees and customers during a rally.
