Starbucks Bid to Stop Arizona Count Rejected by Labor Board (1)

The U.S. labor board rejected a bid by Starbucks Corp. to block the counting of unionization ballots in Arizona.

The decision could pave the wave for an expanded labor foothold at the coffee chain, depending on the outcome of the votes. Starbucks had asked members of the National Labor Relations Board to overturn a regional director’s ruling that the employees of a store in Mesa, Arizona, were an appropriate potential bargaining unit. As it has in similar disputes across the country, the company argued that any election should include a larger group of workers in the region, meaning the union ...