Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file
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The shuttered Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant in Augusta should reopen, its former employees should be offered their jobs back with back pay and the company needs to bargain with the unionized employees, according to a sweeping complaint issued late Thursday by the National Labor Relations Board.
The complaint alleges Chipotle violated the National Labor Relations Act when it closed its Augusta restaurant July 19, the same day a hearing had been scheduled as workers sought to unionize following workplace health and safety concerns.
Workers at the Augusta Chipotle were thought to be the first in the United States seeking to organize a union at the restaurant chain back in June.
In an announcement released Thursday to the news media, Brandi McNease, the lead organizer for Chipotle Workers United and a former worker at the Augusta Chipotle, said the complaint filed by the board shows “how corporations are working to exploit American citizens, even going so far as to blatantly break the labor laws meant to protect us.”
“They know that they are in the wrong and now so does everyone else,” McNease wrote in the statement.
In a statement Thursday night, Laurie Schalow, chief corporate affairs officer for Chipotle, said the company plans to “vigorously defend ourselves on this matter” because “closing the Chipotle restaurant in Augusta, Maine, had nothing to do with union activity.”
“Our operational management reviewed this situation...
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