In a blow to Starbucks’s anti-union campaign, labor officials are seeking relief for fired pro-union Starbucks workers in Arizona, and filed an injunction on Friday to force the company to reinstate the fired workers.
The The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), has made a number of findingsAccording to reports, Starbucks illegally fired three employees. the filingCornele A. Overstreet, NLRB region director. The three workers, Laila Dalton, Tyler Gillette and Alyssa Sanchez, composed nearly the entirety of the union’s organizing committee at their store in Phoenix, according to officials.
The injunction would require the company to immediately restore the workers and extinguish any disciplinary actions against them. taken in order toAccording to the NLRB illegally union bust The company will also need to place the court order against them in their stores, and have a high-ranking executive read it aloud at employees in the presence an official of the board.
If the injunction is successful, it will be a major blow to Starbucks’s anti-union campaign, which has led to the termination of at least 18 pro-union workers so far.
“Employees have the fundamental right to choose whether or not they want to be represented by the union without restraint or coercion by their employer,” Overstreet said in a statement. “The faith of Starbucks employees nationwide in workplace democracy will not be restored unless these employees are immediately reinstated under the protection of a federal court order.”
Overstreet is seeking maximum relief. This is when labor officials determine that Overstreet has taken such extreme actions that the board is unable to fix the problems through normal procedures.
“Immediate injunctive relief is necessary to ensure that the Employer does not profit nationwide from its illegal conduct, to protect the employees’ Section 7 rights, to preserve the Board’s remedial power, and to effectuate the will of Congress,” Overstreet continued.
The company denied the allegationsWorkers were fired because they broke existing policies, he claimed. However, pro-union workers Have been highlighted that the company often fires workers for offenses that wouldn’t normally be considered fireable or for policies that didn’t exist before.
The union was happy to celebrate the filing. “We’re glad to see concrete and swift action by Regional Director Overstreet, in response to Starbucks’ unprecedented and shocking union-busting campaign,” Starbucks Workers United wrote in a press release. “Starbucks’ treatment of our fellow partners in Arizona mirrors its treatment of union supportersat various stores across the country. As a result, we fully expect that this is the first of many future petitions the NLRB will pursue against Starbucks, until the company is held accountable for its violations of our right to organize.”
In spite of Starbucks’s union-busting efforts, the union has been incredibly successful so far. Monday was workers in Hopewell, New Jersey,They voted unanimously to form an union at their store. marking the 30thThe campaign included a unionized store owned by a corporate owner. Only eight stores had voted in favor of the union as of April 1, meaning that the union has almost quadrupled the number unionized stores in this month.
