Legal group aiming to remove Starbucks union sets its sights on a Philly store
Other Starbucks decertification efforts have not made it to an election, and several of the cases have been dismissed by the National Labor Relations Board.
A nonprofit legal organization that has been seeking to remove the unions at Starbucks stores across the country has turned its attention to Philadelphia.
The National Right to Work Foundation (NRWF) is now representing an employee at the Starbucks at Ninth and South Streets, who filed a petition seeking to decertify Workers United last month.
The same organization represented workers at Good Karma Cafe who filed for decertification of their union earlier this year. An election was held in September, and the union lost.
In a news release, NRWF identified the Starbucks employee as Michael Simonelli. NRWF says a majority of employees at the Ninth and South store signed the petition.
NRWF has sought union decertification at a number of other Starbucks locations, but the effort has faced legal obstacles because of allegations of anti-union activity by Starbucks. None of the Starbucks decertification efforts have made it to an election, and several of the cases have been dismissed by the National Labor Relations Board.
The NLRB issued a board decision Thursday in one of those cases, in Buffalo.
In that case, a worker represented by the NRWF filed a decertification petition in April. A regional director for NLRB dismissed the petition because of pending unfair labor practices allegations against Starbucks. Starbucks and NRWF sought a review of the case, but the board denied their request in Thursday’s decision.
According to Starbucks, employees at 19 of its unionized stores have sought union decertification.
“Union representation is a personal choice upheld by the complex framework of U.S. labor law, and we respect the right of our partners to decide whether they want to join, or refrain from joining, a union,” Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull said. “Workers United and the NLRB should equally respect the rights of all partners regardless of their views.”
More than 9,000 Starbucks employees at more than 360 stores across the United States have unionized with Workers United.
In the past month, at least nine Starbucks stores in the United States have filed papers with the NLRB seeking to unionize. One of them is in North Wales, Montgomery County, where workers will vote later this month on whether to join Workers United.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misstated how the petition was filed. The error has been corrected.