Filing: “Three-year delay” in adjudicating NLRB charge used as basis for blocking employee vote, warrants election being finally scheduled

Oklahoma City, OK (October 21, 2026) – Starbucks employee Amy Smith has filed a second request asking National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 14 to reinstate her decertification petition to remove the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union from her Nichols Hills Starbucks store. She originally filed for decertification over three years ago. Smith is receiving free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

The request for reinstatement comes after Region 14 began treating Smith’s case as closed, even though the agency itself ruled the petition remained subject to reinstatement. Smith’s request says the Region did so “erroneously,” and further argues that the NLRB’s years-long failure to resolve the charges blocking her election is precisely the kind of “unusual and special situation” that requires the agency to let workers vote.

Three-Year NLRB Delay Instigated by SBWU Union Bosses Must End

Smith’s petition was backed by enough of her coworkers’ signatures at the Nichols Hills store to meet the necessary threshold needed to trigger a decertification vote. At union officials’ urging, the NLRB dismissed the petition “subject to reinstatement” pending resolution of an alleged unfair labor practice case against Starbucks.

After that case was resolved through a non-Board settlement, Smith asked the Region to reinstate her petition, only to have the Regional Director point to a different set of charges filed by the union against Starbucks to keep the vote on hold. Smith appealed to the full Board in Washington, D.C. In April 2026, the Board denied her request for review, relying on its controversial Biden-era 2022 Rieth-Riley decision, which granted Regional Directors wide discretion to dismiss decertification petitions subject to reinstatement, while the NLRB pursues complaints based on union allegations.

“In light of this return of… the over three years that have passed since she filed her petition, Petitioner yet again requests reinstatement of the petition,” the filing states. It argues that “[t]he Board’s inexcusable delay in litigating the unfair labor practice charges blocking this election” is itself grounds to hold the vote.

Board Member Signals Blocking Policy Deserves Scrutiny by New NLRB Majority

When the Board denied Smith’s appeal in April, NLRB Member Scott Mayer joined the decision for institutional reasons but wrote separately that Rieth-Riley may not strike the proper balance between “the statutory goal of promoting labor relations stability” and the Board’s duty to give effect to employees’ wishes about representation.

At the time, with Biden-holdover Member David Prouty holding one of three filled seats on the Board, the NLRB lacked the three votes traditionally needed to overturn past precedents. However, in August a fourth member joined the Board.

Mayer has continued to press the issue. In other recent Board orders denying review of blocked petitions, he emphasized that Regional Directors must, at a minimum, give more detail about why a petition is being blocked so the Board can properly evaluate those decisions, and that blocking determinations should be reassessed as cases drag on.

“For years, the one-two punch of Rieth-Riley and the Biden Board’s blocking charge rule has trampled the statutory rights of workers seeking to remove unions they oppose,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Amy Smith and her coworkers asked for a vote more than three years ago, and they’re still waiting – not because of anything they did, but because union officials and NLRB bureaucrats keep finding new reasons to disenfranchise them.

“Every American has the right to decide whether a union in their workplace is right for them. If President Trump’s new NLRB majority is serious about putting American workers first, reversing these union-label, Biden-era precedents would be an excellent place to start,” Mix added.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.