Peoria Starbucks broke the law: NLRB

A three-member National Labor Relations Board panel has ordered Starbucks’ Peoria location at Campustown to stop singling out workers because they support unionizing – including recording alleged rule violations or releasing them in the middle of their shifts – and required the coffee shop to post a notice of workers’ right to organize.

That decision was good news in West Central Illinois at a time when two other related events are also significant on a national scale.

For Peoria, the NLRB’s Lauren McFerren, David Prouty and Gwynne Wilcox ruled that Starbucks unlawfully interfered with union activity, agreeing with Administrative Law Judge Paul Bogas’ decision 16 months ago,.

“We’re happy to see the NLRB continue to stand up for workers and our legal right to organize,” Starbucks barista and union activist Michelle Eisen said in a prepared statement. “At the same time, we’re focused on the future and are proud to be charting a new path with the company.”

In 2022, workers at the Starbucks location on West Main Street were the second Starbucks workers in Illinois to unionize with the Workers United/Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Campustown Starbucks workers went out on a 7½- hour strike on May 14, 2022.

The Labor Board is also requiring Starbucks to make whole a barista for illegally sending her home, removing from company files references to “unlawful written warnings” to two workers, and to cease and desist actions such as those taken by a store manager and regional manager at the Campustown site.

Meanwhile, negotiations between Starbucks and Workers United for a national collective bargaining agreement have been continuing since spring.

“Workers United and Starbucks continue to make progress on the foundation framework,” said Molly Nuñez, a Vice President at BerlinRosen, a political consultant firm. “[The parties] have met at the bargaining table monthly since April and have meetings scheduled for November and December. The goal is still to finish the framework by the end of the year.”

Elsewhere, another NLRB order has found Starbucks liable for back pay for unionized workers at hundreds of stores whose hours were cut without the corporation bargaining about it — and the federal agency wants the coffee chain to pay affected workers for the wages and benefits they would have otherwise earned.

The Board’s General Counsel on Oct. 10 filed a complaint saying that Starbucks made the scheduling changes in late 2022 and early 2023 without consulting the union. Changing pay and schedules generally can’t be altered without negotiating once employees unionize.

“The NLRB recently moved to the complaint stage on a combined case regarding scheduling changes for 8,000 baristas and shift supervisors across 300 stores,” said Molly Nunez, with the BerlinRosen PR firm. “By the estimate of attorneys for Workers United, the NLRB's make-whole remedy on hours alone would cost Starbucks more than $30 million, conservatively.”

Eisen, the Starbucks barista, added, “This complaint is a significant move by the NLRB impacting roughly 8,000 union-represented partners. The board’s complaint backs up the concerns baristas and shift supervisors have shared time and time again regarding understaffing in our stores. We're pleased to see the NLRB take bold action to support working people.”

Starbucks workers’ nationwide organizing campaign started in 2021, and currently, workers at some 500 U.S. Starbucks locations have joined the union since late 2021. For years, baristas have accused the company of conducting an aggressive anti-union response, cutting wages and benefits, closing stores, firing workers and so one to block unionizing. NLRB judges have issued dozens of decisions that Starbucks has violated workers’ rights.