[US corporations have mounted a fierce counterattack against the
union drives at Starbucks, Amazon and other companies. ]
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‘OLD-SCHOOL UNION BUSTING’: HOW US CORPORATIONS ARE QUASHING THE
NEW WAVE OF ORGANIZING  
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Steven Greenhouse
February 26, 2023
Guardian
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_ US corporations have mounted a fierce counterattack against the
union drives at Starbucks, Amazon and other companies. _

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US corporations have mounted a fierce counterattack against the union
drives at Starbucks [[link removed]],
Amazon and other companies, and in response, federal officials are
working overtime to crack down on those corporations’ illegal
anti-union tactics – maneuvers that labor leaders fear could
significantly drain the momentum behind today’s surge of
unionization.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that
polices labor-management relations, has accused Starbucks and Amazon
[[link removed]] of a slew of illegal
anti-union practices, among them firing many workers in retaliation
for backing a union. Nonetheless, many workplace experts question
whether the NLRB’s efforts, no matter how vigorous, can assure that
workers have a fair shot at unionizing.

“We’re seeing the same situation over and over – workers going
up against billionaires and billion-dollar companies with an endless
amount of resources while our labor laws are far too weak,” said
Michelle Eisen, a barista in Buffalo who helped lead the early
unionization efforts of Starbucks in that city. “We’re all
fighting for the same thing against different companies. We’re all
in the same boat. No one denies that there are a lot of obstacles to
overcome.”

“The labor board is doing its job with the limited resources it
has,” she added. “But Starbucks continues to break the law
flagrantly.” The union asserts that Starbucks has engaged in illegal
retaliation by firing 150 pro-union baristas and closing a dozen
recently unionized stores.

Echoing many union leaders, Eisen says US labor laws are woefully
inadequate because they don’t allow regulators to impose any fines
on companies that break the law when fighting against unionization.
Starbucks and Amazon deny firing anyone illegally or violating any
laws in their fight against unionization.

“These workers were supposed to be able to get together without fear
of retaliation,” said Lynne Fox, president of Workers United, the
union that workers at more than 280 Starbucks have voted to join.
“But companies, including Starbucks, have determined that the
penalty for retaliation is minimal – and much more appealing than
allowing workers to unionize. Violating workers’ rights has simply
become part of the cost of doing business.” Labor leaders complain
that the penalty imposed for illegal retaliation is often just an
order to post a notice on a company’s bulletin boards saying that it
broke the law.

Newly unionized workers are also frustrated and angry that efforts to
reach a first contract are taking so long, with some unions asserting
that companies are deliberately and illegally dragging out
negotiations – an assertion the companies deny. Workers won
breakthrough union victories at Starbucks in December 2021, and the
next year saw several other organizing victories. REI workers had a
successful union vote in March 2022, Amazon in April, Apple
[[link removed]]in June, Trader Joe’s
in July and Chipotle in August, but none of those companies have
reached a first contract.

The extraordinary recent wave of unionization that corporate America
has faced over the past year has been met with what union supporters
say is an equally extraordinary wave of union-busting that has slowed
and even stopped some unionization efforts.

Shortly after workers at a Chipotle restaurant in Augusta, Maine,
petitioned for a unionization vote in the hope of becoming the first
Chipotle in the US to unionize, the company shut down the store
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The NLRB has accused Chipotle of illegal retaliation
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sought to order the fast-food chain to reopen the store. Chipotle says
the closing was for legitimate business reasons.

Brandi McNease, a pro-union worker at the Chipotle in Augusta, said:
“They closed it down because we were going to get our vote and they
were going to lose. It’s much easier for a multibillion-dollar
corporation to face whatever the consequences are of that then to
allow a union into one of their stores.”

The NLRB has accused Apple of illegally spying on and threatening
workers
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The company’s anti-union efforts helped pressure Apple store
workers in Atlanta
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withdraw their request to hold a unionization election, although
workers at Apple stores in Towson, Maryland
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and Oklahoma City
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voted to unionize.

Trader Joe’s closed its one wine shop in New York City
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before that shop’s workers were to announce plans to seek a union
election. The workers have accused the company of shutting the store
to quash the union drive and retaliate against the workers. Trader
Joe’s says it didn’t shut the store because of the employees’
organizing efforts.

On 17 February, a day after employees at a Tesla plant in Buffalo
announced plans to unionize, Tesla fired dozens of workers
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Union supporters complained to the NLRB that Tesla dismissed 37
workers “in retaliation for union activity and to discourage union
activity”. Tesla said the terminations had nothing to do with the
union drive and were part of its regular performance-evaluation
process
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The NLRB has brought 75 complaints against Starbucks that accuse it of
more than 1,000 illegal actions. Federal judges have ordered
Starbucks to reinstate numerous pro-union baristas
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they say were fired illegally. The labor board has accused Starbucks
of refusing to bargain with workers at 21 stores
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Oregon and Washington state. The union asserts that Starbucks is
deliberately dragging out negotiations to dishearten union supporters.
Starbucks representatives have walked out of dozens of bargaining
sessions, refusing to talk so long as union negotiators insist on
letting other union members use Zoom to watch the sessions.

The NLRB has accused Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy
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of illegally coercing and intimidating workers by saying they would be
“less empowered” if they unionized. NLRB judges have ruled that
Amazon fired several pro-union workers illegally, and the board
recently accused Amazon
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unlawfully terminating one of the most effective organizers at its
JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, where the Amazon Labor Union won a
landmark victory for the warehouse’s 8,300 employees last 1 April.

Amazon has filed a series of challenges to overturn the union’s
Staten Island victory in the hope of not having to recognize or
bargain with the union. In January, an NLRB judge upheld the
union’s victory
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but Amazon said it would appeal.

“We know they plan to appeal and appeal and drag things out,” said
Christian Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union. Smalls voiced
frustration that nearly a year after the Staten Island workers voted
to unionize, there have been no contract talks.

Benjamin Sachs, a labor law professor at Harvard, admits to some
surprise that several supposedly progressive companies are using
hardball anti-union tactics. “What we have is new economy companies
using the old, anti-union playbook on a national scale and in a way
that people are paying attention to,” Sachs said.

“It’s not new, but it’s more prominent: firing union organizers,
threatening to close stores, closing stores, not bargaining, holding
captive audience meetings, selective granting of benefits. To
observers of labor, this has been going on for a long time. What’s
different is these companies that hold themselves as different and
progressive – they’re proving they’re not. There’s a
dissonance between these brands’ progressive image and their
old-school union-busting.”

Amazon has repeatedly denied any illegal anti-union actions. It said:
“We don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees”
and “our focus remains on working directly” with our them “to
continue making Amazon a great place to work”. Amazon argues that
the union’s win on Staten Island “was not fair, legitimate or
representative of the majority” and should therefore be overturned,
maintaining that the union illegally intimidated and harassed
anti-union workers and illegally distributed marijuana to win support.

Starbucks denies that it fired any pro-union baristas unlawfully,
saying that those workers were dismissed for misconduct or violating
company rules. The company denies that it is deliberately dragging out
negotiations, saying: “Counter to the union’s claims, Starbucks
continues to engage honestly and in good faith while ensuring actions
taken align with decades of case law and precedent.” It added:
“We’ve come to the table in person and in good faith for 84
single-store contract bargaining sessions since October 2022.”
Starbucks acknowledges that it has walked out of bargaining sessions
because the workers “insist on broadcasting” the sessions “to
unknown individuals not in the room and, in some instances, have
posted excerpts of the sessions online”.

Leaders of the Starbucks union say they have repeatedly pledged that
the workers would not broadcast, record or post excerpts of the
bargaining sessions. Furthermore, they ask why Starbucks refuses to
let union members watch the negotiations by Zoom when it allowed that
practice during the pandemic and so many other companies allow the use
of Zoom during negotiating sessions. For its part, Starbucks has
accused the union
[[link removed].] of
failing to bargain in good faith, a claim the union says is ludicrous.

One study found that after workers won union elections, 52% of the
time they were without a first contract a year later
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without one two years later. Many companies drag out contract talks as
long as they can in order to dishearten workers and show that
there’s little to gain by unionizing and because they know they save
money on wages and benefits by delaying – or never reaching – a
first union contract. Moreover, many companies prolong contract talks
in the hope that union members will grow frustrated with their union
and vote to decertify it.

Sarah Beth Ryther, a leader of the successful effort to unionize a
Trader Joe’s in Minneapolis, said the retailer is moving far slower
than she hoped in negotiations. “I have said it was like writing a
novel. We were on page one for a long time, and now we’re finally on
page two,” Ryther said. “It’s just folks with very little
experience who have organized an independent union, and to face these
union-busting tactics, it’s hard. We’re not being paid a thousand
dollars an hour like some TJ’s lawyers. We do this because we want
to help our fellow workers.”

Even if the NLRB rules that a company broke the law by negotiating in
bad faith to drag out negotiations, federal law doesn’t allow the
labor board to order management to reach a contract. “Even if the
NLRB issues a complaint about bad faith bargaining, it takes a long
time to handle those cases. Any meaningful order is a year down the
road,” said Wilma Liebman, who headed the NLRB under Barack Obama.
“The remedies take too long and they’re too weak. The board
can’t order parties to reach an agreement or make concessions.”

Liebman pointed to the big issue that labor organizing faces right
now. “Can the unionization surge be sustained by continued
growth?” she asked. “Otherwise it’s going to fizzle. This is the
year that’s kind of make or break.”

Under federal law, employers can’t be fined for illegal delays or
bargaining in bad faith. The proposed protecting the right to
organize (Pro) act
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to overcome lengthy delays by providing that if the two sides failed
to reach a contract within 120 days of a new union’s being
certified, a panel of arbitrators should be appointed to decide on the
terms of a first two-year contract. The Pro act would also allow for
substantial fines against employers that violate the law when fighting
unions. 

The House of Representatives approved the Pro act
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March 2021, but, facing a filibuster and unanimous Republican
opposition, the legislation went nowhere in the Senate.

Sachs says corporations have sizable incentives to violate the law
when battling against unions because the National Labor Relations Act
doesn’t provide for any fines for illegal actions. “We need to
fundamentally change the incentive structure facing employers during
union drives,” he said. “You can change the incentive structure in
different ways. Consumers can do it if there is a national boycott of
Starbucks or Apple or Chipotle or REI. That would have a huge impact.
The other way to change the incentive structure would be to have
massive monetary damages for anti-union violations. That would require
not only legislative change, but the courts to order damage awards –
and that would be a slow process.”

Eisen, the barista in Buffalo, voices keen dismay that Starbucks keeps
ratcheting up the pressure against the union drive. Arguably its most
effective strategy to discourage unionization was not the firings or
store closings, but when its CEO, Howard Schultz, announced that the
company would give certain raises and benefits to its nonunion workers
while denying them to workers at its unionized stores. The NLRB has
brought a complaint asserting that this Starbucks policy illegally
discriminates against union members.

“One of the things we need to win is public pressure,” Eisen said.
“Can we let billionaires and billionaire companies continue to bully
their way out of union campaigns? That’s essentially what is
happening. It’s not fair. We need as much help as we can get. We
need the public to recognize that these companies are not as good as
they say they are.”

The anti-union tactics have taken their toll. Partly because
Starbucks’ aggressive anti-union efforts have discouraged and
frightened many workers, the number of petitions for union elections
at Starbucks stores has dropped from 71 last March to about 10 per
month recently. Trader Joe’s workers in Boulder, Colorado, withdrew
their petition for a unionization vote a day after
[[link removed]] they
filed charges accusing the retailer of illegal intimidation and
coercion. With highly paid anti-union consultants on hand to press
workers to vote no, the Amazon Labor Union lost a unionization vote
at a warehouse outside Albany, New York, and following that loss and
facing an anti-union campaign, workers at an Amazon warehouse in
Moreno Valley, California, withdrew their petition
[[link removed].] for
a union election.

“That comes with the territory, but that’s what we signed up for
as organizers,” said the Amazon Labor Union’s Smalls. “We know
this is a marathon not a sprint. In the words of Mother Jones, you
fight like hell. That’s what we’re doing right now, fighting like
hell.”

* union busting
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* Amazon
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* Starbucks
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* Trader Joe’s
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* Starbucks Workers United
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