Starbucks committed “egregious and widespread” violations of federal labor law while trying to halt union campaigns, ruled a federal administrative law judge, who ordered the coffee giant to reopen closed stores and reimburse backpay and damages to employees who launched a nationwide organizing drive at the company.
Starbucks showed “a general disregard for the employees’ fundamental rights,” Judge Michael A. Rosas wrote in a 220-page order released Wednesday.
In resolving an extensive case that combined 33 unfair labor practices charges from 21 stores in the Buffalo area, Rosas held that the company retaliated against employees affiliated with Starbucks Workers United as they began a union drive in 2021. Since then, 268 of the roughly 9,000 company-owned U.S. stores have voted to unionize, and Starbucks’s interim chief executive Howard Schultz has drawn the ire of liberal political leaders.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said Wednesday that he would force a vote to subpoena Schultz as part of a hearing about unionization efforts at Starbucks.
“To order a company to reopen stores that it’s closed should be embarrassing for Starbucks,” said Rebecca Givan, an associate professor of labor studies at Rutgers University.
Rosas’s order requires Starbucks to halt a sweeping list of behaviors that include: retaliating against employees for unionizing; promising improved pay and benefits if...
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