The nation’s top labor body ruled Tuesday Starbucks broke the law in handling labor issues at a now-shuttered Starbucks store on Capitol Hill.
Starbucks violated fair labor practices by telling an employee they couldn’t testify at an NLRB hearing without securing shifts and by prohibiting union activities during company-paid breaks, according to the National Labor Relations Board ruling.
The Seattle-based coffee giant disagreed with the board’s decision on Tuesday. “We … are exploring opportunities for further legal review,” spokesperson Andrew Trull said in an email.
Employees of the store at Broadway East and Denny Way were the first in Seattle to unionize in December 2021, and the votes were certified about three months later. Last December, Starbucks closed the store citing safety concerns. The store employees reached a contract with the company before it permanently closed.
According to the NLRB ruling, the board subpoenaed barista Rachel Ybarra to testify after Starbucks contested the union elections. A manager threatened to discipline Ybarra if they attended the hearing without finding coverage for their shift. Ybarra uses they/them pronouns.
“The Board has found that imposing potentially burdensome conditions on an employee as a prerequisite for attending a hearing pursuant to an NLRB subpoena” violates the National Labor Relations Act.
At the same store, a store manager instructed Ybarra not to hand union pins to customers and co-workers, according to the ruling.
The store manager told Ybarra they could not “be handing out things to customers, other than their food/beverage order, while on work time.” The manager later said Ybarra could do so outside of the store or on their free time.
The board found that “Starbucks offered no evidence of special business circumstances that would justify such a prohibition.” It also could not point to its employee handbook to forgo a violation, the ruling said.
The decision marks the board’s second time ruling on a Starbucks case in Seattle. It previously issued a decision about the Reserve Roastery on Capitol Hill, in which it decided Starbucks unlawfully refused to negotiate with the union.
In Tuesday’s ruling, the board issued Starbucks a cease-and-desist order. It also required the coffee giant to post a notice to employees at the store and provide the NLRB’s regional director a certification of compliance within 21 days. Since the store is closed, Starbucks will have to mail a copy of the notice to workers employed there since Jan. 14, 2022.
Starbucks reached a settlement with the NLRB on another Seattle case earlier this month. The company will provide back pay to unionized workers who Starbucks prevented from taking shifts at a coffee kiosk at a University of Washington football game last year.
The NLRB has certified 301 unionized Starbucks stores out of 9,000 company-owned locations in the U.S. As of last month, the NLRB had 552 open or settled unfair labor practice charges against Starbucks, its subsidiary Siren Retail and law firm Littler Mendelson.
