Even though more than 500 Starbucks shops had unionized by the end of 2024, it seems that the company’s management did not respect the new union very much. Unfortunately for the company, one implication that can be drawn is that the company’s management didn’t respect federal labor law very much too. For in not respecting its union enough to negotiate it on reducing employee work hours, the company violated federal law. The “smoking gun,” I submit, was that the management used dissimulation to respond to the government, rather than address the complaint directly.
On October 10, 2024, the “general council of the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint . . . alleging that Starbucks made the scheduling changes in late 2022 and early 2023” without consulting and negotiating with the union.”[1] The complaint reads in part that Starbucks changed workers’ hours “without prior notice to the Union and without affording the Union an opportunity to bargain.”[2] As per federal labor law, Starbucks was required to give prior notice to the union and give it a chance to bargain, as well as to tell the union how the change in hours would impact the paychecks of the workers affected. In its written response, the company’s management ignored this requirement and instead defended a practice that was not against the law and the government was thus not in the government’s complaint.
Starbucks stated, “We continuously review operations decisions to optimally address business needs and customer expectations, consistent with the law.”[3] Indeed, doing so does not in itself violate federal law, but the statement does not address the complaint. Next, the company tried to obviate the complaint, again by not addressing anything that was illegal, by pointing out, “our decisions were made across our system, in unionized and non-unionized stores, and they were made without regard to organizing activity at Starbucks.”[4] Even if that were true, it does not address whether the management had informed the union and given it an opportunity to bargain in the cases of the unionized stores.
By not addressing the violations specified in the complaint, the company’s managers may either have been dissimulating by changing the terms of the dispute or trying to avoid lying by denying the specific charges. Either way, the mentality is sordid, and this in itself can be interpreted in line with the old adage, Where there is smoke, there is fire. Where there is a devious mentality, there is likely to be a crime.
As a result of the violation, some employees lost the benefit of health insurance because they no longer worked enough hours per week. Therefore, the union’s lawyer said that damages could be more than merely the wages for the lost hours. A conservative estimate could be “north of $30 million.”[5] Lest this seem like enough of a disincentive for the management to begin to respect the union (and federal labor law), I submit that it is extremely difficult to change a company’s organizational culture.
Today, I went to buy a product at a Target store. The shelf was empty so I went to customer service, which the linguistically opportunistic management calls “guest” services. The employee was incorrect that I could not order the product online and have it delivered to the store; she was even wrong that the product was not in the back of the store. I went to a manager, who assured me that she would “coach” the employee. In a tone of “you’re not getting it,” what I actually said was, “It was not just her mistakes; her mentality—her attitude—was terrible, and that can’t be coached away.” The manager didn’t say anything, but her facial expression was one of dismissiveness. Starbucks’ management at the corporate level needed more than coaching from the government.
1. Dave Jamieson, “Starbucks
Could Owe Millions to Baristas Who Unionized,” The Huffington Post, October
11, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
