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Starbucks hit with Sweeping Labor Complaint Amid Surging Unionization

Starbucks Ridgewood

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board in Buffalo, N.Y., issued a complaint against Starbucks for 29 unfair labor practice charges that included over 200 violations of the National Labor Relations Act. The complaint stems from claims made by Starbucks Workers United against the company in Buffalo, where the union organizing effort began in August. The NLRB says Starbucks interfered with, restrained and coerced employees seeking to unionize in various ways.


On August 30, 2021, three Starbucks stores in and around Buffalo, New York, filed union election petitions with the National Labor Relations Board.In the eight months since, close to 250 other Starbucks stores have followed, driving a surge in union election petitions not seen since 2015. The NLRB reported that union election petitions were up 57% in the first half of the 2022 fiscal year, compared with the year before. Starbucks petitions account for nearly a quarter of all petitions filed since January.

The Starbucks unionizing effort is remarkable, not only because of the stunning speed at which it has spread — more than 40 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize — but also because food and drink establishments have traditionally been among the least unionized workplaces in the U.S. Only 1.2% of all workers in the sector were unionized in 2021, according to the Labor Department.

Workers at three Starbucks in New Jersey – Hopewell, Mercer County , Hamilton, Mercer County and Summit, Union County have voted in favor to unionize.

Meanwhile Starbucks criticized President Joe Biden for meeting with an organizer who is trying to help its shops unionize. The company, famous for roasting coffee, requested a meeting with the president and said it was “deeply concerned” about a Starbucks representative not being invited to the meeting. “We believe this lack of representation discounts the reality that the majority of our partners oppose being members of a union and the unionization tactics being deployed by Workers United,” A.J. Jones, Starbucks’s head of global communications and public affairs, wrote in a letter to the White House dated for Thursday. “As you know, American workers have the absolute right to decide for themselves to unionize, or not to unionize, without any undue influences.”

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