In the latest move in Starbucks’s fierce anti-union campaign across the country, the company has closed a unionized store in South Carolina after a manager filed kidnapping and assault charges against workers — charges that the union calls “false and absurd.”
Workers in Anderson, South Carolina confronted their manager last week with a list containing demands that included fixing equipment in the store, and unionizing the stores. Similar wage increasesThe company offers non-union stores the following: a TikTokStarbucks Workers United has posted over 7.6 Million views.
The video shows workers confronting the manager in the store with the letter. on the phone with corporate. An audio recording of the incident was made by Truthout, the manager asks if they can leave, and the workers say “yes.”
The manager then pushed employees out of their store and called the police. He filed assault and kidnapping cases against the workers. The company has since closed the store and suspended the workers indefinitely. They also forced them to take time off for their own pay. They have also banned employees from entering any Starbucks location.
The union condemned both the charges and the store closings, claiming that they clearly represent union busting.
“These charges are false and absurd. The Anderson Starbucks workers were demanding better working conditions in their store and in no way, shape, or form, did they attempt or prevent the manager from leaving the store,” the union wrote in a press release. “Starbucks has put the workers on paid time off, suspending them indefinitely, and banned them from visiting any Starbucks location. Stabucks also closed down the store.”
Starbucks Workers United is bringing charges of illegal union busting against Starbucks Workers United. The company has since been closed multiple unionizedStores and fired dozens pro-union workers. Starbucks is currently being prosecuted by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for over 200 unfair labor practice charges related to the company’s campaign to shut down the union effort in Buffalo, New York, where the movement began.
Workers at Anderson in May The firstThe South was the first to win unanimously their union vote. gone on strikeMultiple times, requesting higher wages and better working conditions. Workers say that, since they unionized, the company has been slashing their hours in “a blatant act of retaliation” against the union. They also raised concerns about their cold brew machine, and the malfunctioning. sticker printerThey say that it is slowing down service.
Starbucks Has said that it can’t offer workers the same wage raises if they’re in the midst of a union campaign, claiming that it would constitute a “unilateral change” to workers’ conditions, which is in violation of federal labor laws. The union and labor law experts say that this isn’t true, and that discriminatorily applying wage raises is the actual violation of labor laws.
Workers United President Lynne Fox oversees the union of which Starbucks Workers United is a member, to further clarify the point. wrote in a letter to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz last week that the union waives any objection it may have to giving unionizing workers the wage raise, essentially removing the company’s legal cover for its plan. “Workers United knows that these statements are misleading at best and false at worst,” Fox wrote.
