Starbucks Firings Deemed Illegal by Labor Board Officials

U.S. labor board prosecutors plan to formally accuse Starbucks Corp. of illegally firing a group of activists who’ve been trying to unionize their store in Memphis, Tennessee, unless the company first settles the case.

Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, alleged in February that the company fired seven employees -- including almost all of the union leaders at the store -- because of their support for unionization. The National Labor Relations Board’s New Orleans-based regional director determined that the workers were illegally fired and will issue a complaint unless there’s a settlement, agency press secretary Kayla Blado said in an email Friday.

Starbucks didn’t immediately comment in response to an inquiry. The company has said that the employees weren’t punished for their involvement with the union or for talking to the media, but rather because they let off-duty staff and non-employees, including reporters, into their store when it was closed, and violated numerous safety rules.

The firing of the seven Memphis workers is the most prominent of dozens of cases filed with NLRB offices across the country in which Workers United has alleged illegal anti-union tactics by Starbucks. The company has said that claims of anti-union activity are “categorically false.”

At a forum earlier this week, on his first day back in the top role, Starbucks Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz told employees that “we can’t ignore what is happening in the country as it relates to companies throughout the country being assaulted in many ways by the threat of unionization.” After noting the company’s past growth on his watch, Schultz said, “We didn’t get here by having a union at Starbucks.”

Complaints issued by NLRB regional directors are considered by agency judges, whose rulings can be appealed to labor board members in Washington and from there into federal court. The labor board lacks the authority to impose punitive damages for violations of the law, and disputes over firings can drag on for years -- which can also effectively derail organizing efforts. A 2019 study of claims filed with the labor board found that workers are allegedly fired illegally in 20% to 30% of union election campaigns.

The agency’s prosecutors can also seek federal court injunctions to more quickly reinstate fired activists -- a tactic that its Joe Biden-appointed general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, has said she plans to deploy “aggressively” where needed. In its February filing, the union urged that the labor board pursue such an injunction in this case, “to prevent irreparable destruction of employee rights” resulting from the firings.

Since being fired, the workers -- who call themselves the “Memphis Seven” -- have taken part in protests in Memphis and in Starbucks’s Seattle hometown, spoken at the South By Southwest festival, and met with lawmakers.

“I’m hoping Howard Schultz is a smart man and he settles, but from the union-busting tactics that have continued, I don’t think he’s going to,” one of the fired workers, Nikki Taylor, said Friday. “We’re going to win either way.”

Workers United has prevailed in unionization elections at 16 Starbucks sites in recent months, establishing a new labor foothold among the company’s thousands of corporate-run U.S. stores.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Josh Eidelson in Palo Alto at jeidelson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
John J. Edwards III at jedwardsiii1@bloomberg.net

Jonathan Roeder

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