A Starbucks location in Buffalo, New York, has filed a petition to decertify its union.
The petitioning workers would need to win an election to remove Starbucks Workers United as their union representative. If successful, it would be the first location to unionize and decertify its union.
Starbucks Workers United was unenthusiastic about the petition but made it clear it changes nothing.
“Thousands of Starbucks workers across the country have voted in favor of a union, more than 1,500 workers have joined our movement in 2023 alone, and this doesn’t change that fact. Starbucks has launched an intensive, scorched-earth union-busting campaign against its workers across the board. This is just another tactic Starbucks is using to try to intimidate workers and to silence our voices,” the union said in a statement.
According to reports, two other stores, in Georgia and Oklahoma, also have filed petitions to decertify their unions. Workers can vote to decertify a union without a reason under federal law but must wait at least one year after forming it. Both of those locations formed their unions within a year of writing their petitions, so neither has held a vote.
The Buffalo location was one of the first Starbucks locations to vote to approve a union. The store officially became unionized in April 2022.
While union representatives have not publicly commented on the reason for the petition, a union spokesperson told local media that Starbucks launched an illegal and wide-reaching union-busting campaign at the store after the vote. The union says the company fired many of the union organizers responsible for the union drive in retaliation.
Starbucks representatives have said the union’s allegations are completely false and that the fired employees were removed after admitting to clear violations of policy unrelated to the unionization drive.
According to Starbucks Workers United, workers have organized around 300 stores in the U.S. None of those stores have reached a contract with Starbucks.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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