NLRB Tosses 40-Year Stance on Manager Unionization Threats (1)

Employers are no longer categorically allowed to tell workers that unionization will negatively impact their relationship with management, a split National Labor Relations Board ruled, overturning a nearly 40-year-old precedent in a case against Starbucks Corp.

The coffee giant made a series of illegal threats to its workers during a union election drive at its Seattle Roastery, the board ruled Friday. It’s the latest in a series of board decisions against the company as it hashes out with Starbucks Workers United a framework for bargaining at over 500 cafes nationwide.

But the board’s Democratic majority cleared Starbucks of charges ...