Starbucks Workers Face ‘Uphill Battle’ With Bids to Remove Union

A host of alleged labor law violations at Starbucks cafes across the country is threatening to stymie a growing movement to oust the union some two years after an organizing wave hit the coffee giant.

Workers so far have filed 10 petitions to decertify Starbucks Workers United at stores in six states where the union has been certified for more than a year—a requirement for seeking decertification where a contract hasn’t yet been reached.

But labor lawyers say widespread accusations of union busting, combined with current National Labor Relations Board doctrine, will make it difficult for anyone to bring the matter to a vote.

NLRB Regional Director Linda Leslie already has tossed two decertification petitions filed at stores in New York, one in Buffalo and Rochester, saying that allegations of illegal threats, reprisals, and discharge of union organizers “irrevocably taint the petition and any related election.”

The agency’s lawyers have filed more than 90 complaints against Starbucks claiming labor law violations. These include at least two nationwide complaints: one alleging that Starbucks illegally withheld pay and benefits increases from union workers, and one accusing the company of stonewalling contract negotiations at more than 160 unionized stores.

And administrative law judges have ruled that the coffee giant has broken federal labor law hundreds of times in 20 separate rulings, including one that found widespread violations at stores in Buffalo and Rochester.

“The pending complaints, including the nationwide bargaining complaint, are so bad that you can end the analysis there,” said Ian Hayes, a partner at Hayes Dolce.

The National Labor Relations Act allows unions to file “blocking charges” in response to decertification petitions, alleging that the company has engaged in labor law violations that would make a decertification election unfair.

The nationwide complaint against Starbucks is “the exact kind of complaint that would warrant dismissal under current case law,” Hayes said.

Litigation Ahead

Workers can file petitions to decertify a union if a year has passed without an initial bargaining contract, or during brief windows after a contract has expired. At least 165 of the 329 Starbucks units have been certified for a year, according to NLRB data.

None of the stores have reached a collective bargaining agreement with the company.

As the bids to oust Starbucks Workers United slowly tick up, the union has vowed to use the mounting charges against Starbucks as evidence that any decertification election will be influenced by the company’s alleged bad behavior.

Starbucks maintains that it hasn’t violated US labor laws. The NLRB regional director’s “dismissal of partner voices” could create a “chilling effect” on other workers seeking to decertify the union, company spokesperson Andrew Trull said in an emailed statement.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has filed a request for the full labor board to review the regional director’s decision in the Buffalo case. The conservative foundation, which opposes “compulsory unionism abuses,” is providing free legal services to the worker seeking decertification there and another who is vying to decertify the union at a New York City roastery.

NRTW said in its request that the worker filed the petition because she and her co-workers don’t share the same “agenda or point of view” as the union and don’t like that the store’s culture turned “divisive” after SBWU was voted in.

The foundation will pursue the decertification cases all the way past the NLRB and up to the US Supreme Court, if necessary, NRTW Vice President Patrick Semmens told Bloomberg Law.

“Going forward, we’re going to fight this all the way,” he said. “This ultimately gets down to the purpose of the NLRA, which is supposed to be about workers’ rights, not about union officials’ power or the employers’ power. It’s supposed to be just about workers and their ability to have a choice.”

But according to Thomas Lenz, a partner at Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo, it’s likely that more of the NLRB’s regional directors will dismiss decertification petitions until the complaints against Starbucks are fully litigated. The whole process could take months or even years, he said.

“It’ll be an uphill battle,” Lenz said. “Given that the NLRB general counsel has expressed concern and interest in stopping employers from getting away from bargaining, the agency looking at this with a degree of suspicion doesn’t surprise me.”

In dismissing the two decertification petitions, the regional director also pointed to the possibility of extending the New York stores’ certification year, a remedy stemming from the board’s 1962 decision in Mar-Jac Poultry Co. If granted, the certification year for units included in the complaint would be extended and render the decertification petitions premature.

NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is asking for a Mar-Jac remedy in the nationwide complaint over Starbucks’ refusal to bargain.

‘Political Hot Potato’

The blocking charges policy has long been a “political hot potato,” said Jeffrey Hirsch, a labor law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and former board lawyer.

Employers often accuse unions of filing charges solely to slow a decertification petition, but the dismissal of the Starbucks petitions seems “fairly straightforward” considering the investigations into the unfair labor practice charges, he said.

“This is not a case where the union’s just throwing up some potentially weak charges just as a defensive measure,” Hirsch said. “The region, not the union, seems to think there’s actually something there.”

The Trump-era board retooled blocking charge rules in 2020, requiring agency officials to hold decertification elections when blocking charges are present, and to impound the ballots or withhold certification of the results until the allegations are resolved.

But the Biden-era board altered the regulation with its 2022 ruling in Rieth-Riley Construction Co., which stipulated that regional directors could make “merit-determination dismissals” if the alleged labor law violations could taint the election.

The Rieth-Riley ruling gives SBWU increased leverage to halt decertification proceedings without full litigation of the blocking charges themselves, said Sara Robertson, a management-side associate at Polsinelli Law Firm.

“They can essentially file unfair labor practice charges in an attempt to stave off a decertification petition,” she said of the union. “You never want allegations to prevent any party, especially employees, from exercising their rights under the NLRA. So I think the reduction of procedural steps required here is a concerning precedent.”

“Employees do have the right to refrain from a union and they should be allowed to express that right unless charges against an employer have been proven to some degree,” Robertson said.