Amid a contentious and rapidly spreading effort to organize Starbucks coffee shops around the country, workers at locations in the Chicago area and Peoria say the company has violated federal labor law and targeted pro-union employees.
The allegations come in eight unfair labor practice cases pending before the National Labor Relations Board and filed between March and July of this year.
Claims include unfairly disciplining employees who backed organizing efforts, threatening retaliation against pro-union workers and forbidding staffers from discussing terms and conditions of their employment.
The charges also say a company leader promised benefits to an employee if they didn’t support a union, improperly interrogated employees and suggested that a pro-union worker should simply quit if they “hate” Starbucks.
One of the claims about company conduct at a Logan Square Starbucks where a union vote eventually failed says the company “(engaged) in surveillance of known union supporters.”
The allegations filed with the NLRB come from stores in Peoria, Wilmette, and Chicago coffee shops located in Edgewater, Logan Square, the Loop and Hyde Park.
“Not just here in Chicago but in other cities – in Seattle, in Denver, in some places in California – we’re seeing the pattern that Starbucks is not afraid of whatever repercussions the National Labor Relations Board may have for firing union supporters,” said Carlos Ginard of the Chicago and Midwest Regional Joint Board of Workers...
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