A week after Starbucks Workers United won a landmark vote to unionize one of its stores on Elmwood Ave., the labor group filed an objection late Thursday night with regards to the voting results of the other two stores in the original vote.
According to the objection filed by the National Labor Relations Board, Starbucks Workers United claims that Starbucks used a "shock and awe" campaign with the effort of trying to intimidate workers to vote against unionization.
"The psychological harm on the employees cannot be overstated, since they had to contend with dozens of managers in a frenzy of anti-union propaganda," as was stated in the petition. "Every medium of attack was used, including one-on-one conversations, group meetings, constant surveillance, and a propaganda extravaganza about the dire consequences a union would bring to Starbucks. These acts of interference were in the context of similar disruption at other stores in the community, which themselves had a secondary effect on employee morale at Genesee Street. The clear aim of Starbucks was to turn these employees' world upside down until they could no longer handle the pressure anymore, leading several to give up and resign their employment."
Workers at the Hamburg location voted against unionization, but the argument is that the campaign launched by Starbucks was the deciding factor in the workers' decision to vote the way they did.
"The basis for the objections are essentially the same kinds of activity the world has already been hearing that Starbucks is engaging in, which is a fierce and poisonous anti-union campaign against its own employees basically for the last 3-4 months since the union went public," said Ian Hayes, the attorney representing the union.
"What comes next is the National Relations Labor Board (NLRB) investigates the allegations that we're raising about the company's anti-union campaign, and gathers evidence from both the union and the company, workers, and decides if what the union is saying is correct. In other words, they'll decide whether the union vote at the Camp Road store was negatively affected by the company's anti-union campaign."
While Hayes is not sure how long the NLRB will take to make any determination of their investigation, the union is confident they will vote in favor of their objection and overturn the election.
Meanwhile, the outcome of the Cheektowaga location could not be determined, at first, because both sides challenged seven separate votes.
"The union challenged the votes of six people, and the union took the position that those people don't actually work at the store, so their votes shouldn't be a part of that vote count. The company also challenged one vote on top of that," Hayes explained. The NLRB is going to collect evidence about those challenged ballots, which more-or-less should just mean them looking at payroll records and seeing whether or not those people were working during the relevant time period. If they were not working, then the NLRB will not open those challenge ballots and the union will, therefore, win the vote by a pretty large margin."
Hayes says he's hopeful that this determination will be finalized in the next couple of weeks.
Starbucks has actively fought unionization for decades, saying its more than 8,000 company-owned U.S. stores function best when it works directly with employees.
A Starbucks spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Another significant bit of news that came of this on Friday was that Starbucks did not file an objection to the results of the union vote at the Elmwood Ave. location. This decision is potentially a sign that the company is willing to change the way they've been battling with their own employees.
"Today's a nice day, because the union is being certified as the bargaining agent of the employees at the Elmwood Ave. store officially today, and we're calling on the company to come to the bargaining table because of that," Hayes said. "At the same time, there are NLRB petitions being filed at many Starbucks stores all over the country now. They've been inspired by this movement that the Buffalo workers have started."
Workers at all three stores began voting by mail last month on whether they wanted to be represented by Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.
