Attempt to Deny Election Laid Bare
June 2004
New York, NY- Lawyers for the IWW IU/660, the union representing Starbucks workers, issued a sharp rebuke in response to the attempt by Starbucks to deny employees a union certification election. The legal brief filed with the National Labor Relations Board lambasted Starbucks for obfuscating facts and ignoring well-established precedent holding that a single store in a retail chain is a valid bargaining unit. A decision in the matter, expected within two weeks, will determine whether Baristas at the Manhattan store are entitled to a vote. Workers have pledged to fight on with or without government certification.
The brief’s author, Stuart Lichten of Kennedy, Schwartz, and Cure writes, “This employer apparently inhabits some parallel universe, in which $7-an-hour at-will employees are ‘partners,’ ‘supervisors’ are not supervisors, ‘store managers’ do not manage the store, and 36th Street is ‘downtown.’”
“Compounding this intentional obfuscation, the employer presented three witnesses who contradicted themselves, each other, and Starbucks’s own documents,” the brief goes on to state. “The employer, in keeping with its up-is-down worldview, now asks the Board to overturn more than 40 years of precedent…”
The brief is available on the Starbucks Baristas Union website at www.starbucksunion.org.
“We expected the delay tactics, but the company’s approach is really reprehensible,” said Anthony Polanco, a worker at the store. “Starbucks needs to accept that no one who comes to work every day and works hard deserves to live in poverty.”