Starbucks illegally fired Buffalo-area employees for their unionization efforts and must reinstate them, a National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge ruled—the latest in a long saga of friction between the company and Starbucks Workers United, the union that first organized in Buffalo in 2021 and has since spread to stores across the country.
Administrative Law Judge Robert Ringler found Tuesday that Starbucks violated federal labor law by firing nine employees across several Buffalo-area locations for their union activities and constructively discharging another pro-union employee who said she was forced to resign after her managers refused to accommodate her schedule or time-off requests.
Among the cases outlined in the 60-page ruling: one pro-union employee was told they were fired for making an unauthorized decision to close a location due to insufficient staffing even though a co-worker actually made the decision, while another was fired for being late despite the fact that discipline over attendance was doled out inconsistently at that location, the ruling says.
Ringler also ruled that Starbucks unlawfully violated labor laws by blaming the union for staffing and scheduling problems and “implicitly threatening store closure because of employees’ Union activities.”
Ringler called for the employees to receive back pay and reinstatement.
The ruling still requires full Labor Board adoption and then must be enforced through the federal court system—Starbucks spokesman Andrew Trull told Forbes the company disagrees with Ringler’s recommendations and is “exploring options for further legal review.”
Trull added that Starbucks continues “to act in a manner that is consistent with established law” and that’s “responsive to our partners — regardless of union status.”
Trull also pointed to a third-party inquiry in December that found no evidence that Starbucks uses an “anti-union playbook” and that the company “has provided consistent reassurances to partners that Starbucks respects their right to collectively organize through fairly conducted elections.” The assessment also found that disciplinary actions were issued at “a similar rate in both union and non-union stores,” Trull said.
“I always knew that my firing was illegal,” Victoria Conklin, one of the employees named in the ruling, told the Buffalo News on Wednesday. “I always knew that was a risk I had to take if I wanted to organize … that they might fire me illegally.”
This week’s ruling covers Starbucks locations that were among the first in the country to unionize. As unionization efforts have spread, Starbucks has faced allegations of anti-union behavior—with many cases drawing similar rulings from other administrative law judges—though Starbucks has consistently denied these allegations. Last March, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz faced tough questioning from Democrats in a congressional hearing but defended the company’s labor practices. The coffee giant recently appealed a federal court ruling prompted by an NLRB complaint that the company illegally fired seven Memphis, Tennessee employees—that case will be heard in a Supreme Court case that will likely weigh questions over the NLRB process. In October, Starbucks and Starbucks Workers United sued each other over the union’s pro-Palestinian social media post. In that case, Starbucks alleges the union infringed on its copyright for using Starbucks in its name, and that the post damaged its reputation. The union countersued to continue using the Starbucks name and accused Starbucks of defamation for claiming the post promoted violence.
In a separate decision Tuesday, another NLRB administrative law judge found Starbucks violated labor laws by firing two pro-union employees in Colorado.
