MAY BITS & PIECES
STARBUCKS TRYING TO DECERTIFY 3 UNION STORES
Starbucks, which has been using all kinds of tricks, legal, borderline, and down-dirty, to combat the union organizing drive in its stores, now is possibly involved in a new one. At three Starbucks locations where workers have voted for the Starbucks Workers United union, a worker has filed a petition to decertify the union.
The three stores are all in New York State, two in Buffalo where the union first took hold, and one in New York City. In NYC, the petition filer is represented by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an outfit connected to right-wing, anti-union financiers.
The union expects that the decertification will be dismissed in light of the charges of unfair labor practices filed by the union against the company now pending before the National Labor Relations Board. In cases like this, the NLRB can bar decertification elections from being held until the allegations are adjudicated on grounds that company actions cannot guarantee that a fair election can take place. But it is part of a Starbucks strategy to delay bargaining with the union among its other tactics of firing union activists and providing benefits to workers at its non-union stores.
Restaurant Dive, 5/12; Courtesy Locker Associates, New York.
FLAGSHIP BARNES & NOBLE STORE WORKERS FILE FOR UNION
Workers at the Barnes and Noble flagship store in Union Square, New York City, have filed for a representation election after they announced the formation of a union. They have affiliated with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The election filing came after the union said that the company had refused to voluntarily recognize the union. The store employs over 100 workers. The union says a majority of them have signed union authorization cards.
The Villager, 4/28, Publishers Weekly, 5/1
STARBUCKS UNION MARKS 300th STORE
In the face of the stiffest company opposition, workers at Starbucks continue their organizing drive. A store in Sacramento, CA has become the 300th Starbucks facility to win a union election.
Starbucks United website, 4/28
YOUNG WORKERS ARE SPARKING MOST UNION DRIVES
According to a Gallup poll, the new spark in union organizing has come from young workers, many of them college educated. The poll reveals that 77 percent of people under 35 approve of unions and form the backbone of people joining and organizing labor unions. The New York Times has referred to the development as “the revolt of the college-educated working class while others call them “Generation U).
