A labor agency in the United States is attempting to compel Starbucks Corporation (SBUX.O.) to reopen 23 allegedly closed outlets to discourage a countrywide union effort. This is the most recent case where the coffee company has been accused of engaging in improper labor practices.
According to a complaint posted on Wednesday, a regional director with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) stated that eight of the businesses in the United States had already unionized by the time they closed their doors.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has received more than one hundred complaints alleging that Starbucks engaged in a range of unlawful union-busting activities. Since 2021, employees at more than 360 of the 9,300 Starbucks outlets in the United States have chosen to join unions.
Starbucks has publicly denied any wrongdoing and stated that it supports the rights of its employees to choose whether or not to form a union.
A request for comment made on Thursday was not immediately met with a response from the corporation.
An administrative judge will consider the matter, and their judgment can be appealed to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which comprises five members, and ultimately to a federal appeals court.
An NLRB judge discovered in July that Starbucks had improperly closed a location in Ithaca, New York, many months after the company had unionized its employees. Starbucks is challenging these decisions.
According to Matthew Hayward, a spokesman for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the latest complaint asserts that Starbucks shuttered the 23 outlets without providing Workers United. This union was behind the campaign, with advance notice and without giving the union a chance to bargain about the choices.
According to Hayward, the agency is attempting to obtain an order that would require Starbucks to promptly reopen the 23 locations and rehire employees, negotiate with unions at stores that have unionized, and offer compensation to employees who have lost salary and benefits.
The lawsuit was filed on the same day that Starbucks made public a report on its labor practices that an outside consultant had compiled. The shareholders had demanded that the study be made public.
Although there was space for Starbucks to enhance its messaging on the union campaign, the study determined that the firm had not adopted “an anti-union playbook” that involves breaching U.S. labor laws. This was one of the results of the investigation.
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