Starbucks Subpoenas for Workers’ Recordings Struck Down by NLRB

Starbucks Corp. violated federal labor law when it subpoenaed two workers at a California cafe, the National Labor Relations Board ruled.

The board’s three-member panel wrote in a decision Friday that Starbucks’ requests for workers’ witness testimony to the agency and recordings they made encroached on their rights to organize.

As part of a separate unfair labor practice case the company requested that two baristas at a cafe in La Quinta, Calif., turn over journals and recordings they had made during the store’s unionization drive, as well as confidential witness affidavits submitted to the NLRB regional office investigating the ULPs. ...