Starbucks Vote Botched by Labor Board Official, Watchdog Finds

The head of the National Labor Relations Board’s St. Louis regional office grossly mismanaged a union election at a Starbucks Corp. store in Kansas, according to the NLRB’s inspector general.

Regional Director Andrea Wilkes’ failure to properly supervise and manage the mail ballot election—and to take reasonable steps to address issues as they arose—“created the risk of great reputational harm” that could hurt the NLRB’s ability to conduct neutral elections, Inspector General David Berry said in a report released Wednesday.

“As such, a disinterested observer with knowledge of the essential facts could reasonably conclude that the Region’s actions in the ...