Labor board says 23 Starbucks, including 10th and Chestnut store, were closed illegally

Starbucks closed its store at 10th and Chestnut Streets in Philadelphia in July 2022, citing safety concerns. But a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board contends the closure was meant to stifle union organizing activity, and wants the coffee chain to reopen it.

That storefront was recently announced as the location of a new Center City Dunkin’, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported in October, expected to open in mid 2024.

A hearing on the labor board’s complaint is set to be held in Seattle in August.

In a complaint filed Wednesday, the NLRB named 23 Starbucks locations, including the 10th and Chestnut store, that were the subject of unfair labor practices charges. It said these stores discouraged employees from engaging in union activities or protected labor activities.

The 10th and Chestnut Starbucks was not a union shop. It closed weeks after four other locations in Philadelphia voted to unionize. There are now eight unionized Starbucks stores in the city.

Other locations listed in the NLRB complaint are in California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Missouri, Illinois, Maine, and Washington, D.C.

Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull said the closures listed in the complaint were part of the company’s regular evaluations of its store portfolio, in which it considers opening new locations, renovating, implementing an “alternative format,” or “in some instances, reevaluating our footprint.”

“In support of our Reinvention Plan, and as part of our ongoing efforts to transform our store portfolio, we continue to open, close and evolve our stores as we assess, reposition and strengthen our store portfolio,” said Sara Trilling, executive vice president and president of Starbucks North America.

Starbucks announced the 10th and Chestnut closure in July 2022 along with the shuttering of 14 West Coast locations and one in Union Station in Washington, D.C. Center City District president Paul Levy told The Inquirer at the time that Starbucks and other businesses had experienced persistent problems with drug use in their bathrooms.

At the time of those closures, Debbie Stroud and Denise Nelson, Starbucks’ senior vice presidents of U.S. operations, alluded to those issues in an open letter posted on Starbucks’ website.

“You’re also seeing firsthand the challenges facing our communities — personal safety, racism, lack of access to healthcare, a growing mental health crisis, rising drug use, and more,” they wrote. “We read every incident report you file — it’s a lot.”

Soon after the 10th and Chestnut store closed, Starbucks announced a new location several blocks away, at 1709 Chestnut St., which would offer take-out only with no public seating or public restroom.

Lydia Fernandez, a barista at the 20th and Market Starbucks, and member of a citywide organizing committee, wasn’t aware of a unionization effort specifically at the 10th and Chestnut location at that time. But a union election at stores in Buffalo, N.Y., in late 2021 had “spared a lot of inspiration for us in Philly,” Fernandez said.

Because many baristas work at multiple locations, discussion about unionizing was spreading throughout the city, Fernandez said, and Starbucks leaders “were worried about the wave of organizing.”

On Wednesday, Starbucks announced findings from a third-party evaluation of the company’s response to unionizing efforts by employees. The investigator, lawyer Thomas Mackall, found that Starbucks did not consider its own Global Human Rights Statement in responding to unionizing activity.

The report said Starbucks was not prepared for the organizing activity that emerged in Buffalo in late 2021 and “does not appear to have anticipated the large wave of organizing that followed.” The company did not have sufficient support and training available “on-the-ground,” the report said, “and Starbucks found itself facing hundreds of ULP [unfair labor practice] charges.”

“Missteps could have been avoided had stronger fundamentals been in place,” the report said.

It noted that NLRB judges have found store managers or supervisors “stepped out of bounds” of labor law, and said disciplinary actions must be consistent with pre-organizing standards and across employees to make sure people aren’t singled out.

“The assessment was direct and clear that while Starbucks has had no intention to deviate from the principles of freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, there are things the company can, and should, do to improve its stated commitments and its adherence to these important principles,” board chair Mellody Hobson said.