PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Starbucks has been ordered to stop activities federal regulators said obstruct employees’ rights to form a union — and an administrative law judge has ordered the coffee giant to reinstate two employees it says were fired illegally.
The National Labor Relations Board has instructed Starbucks to negotiate any changes in wages, hours or terms of employment with the Service Employees International Union and stop efforts to interfere with the union.
Employees at the store voted to join the union in 2022. Since that time, Starbucks and the union have not reached a collective bargaining agreement.
The NLRB has upheld several union complaints against the coffee giant. In the most recent case this week, an administrative law judge at the board said Starbucks management violated labor law by, among other things, terminating two employees, Lydia Fernandez and Bria Garvey, engaged in union activity, after the policy for tardiness was changed.
A third employee testified before the board that when she objected to a directive that they had to tell management whenever they interacted with the union, a manager at the store said that “Starbucks policy trumps federal law.”
In addition to stopping actions aimed at interfering with the union, the board said Starbucks must also reinstate Fernandez and Garvey and pay them for lost wages.
Attorneys for the union and Starbucks did not respond to requests for comment.