Case cited as excuse for blocking workers’ vote recently ended

OKLAHOMA AND UTAH (October 9,2024)– Starbucks employees in Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City filed requests with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), asking the agency to proceed with holding an election at their respective stores to remove Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union officials from the workplace. Both employees, Amy Smith (OK) and Indya Fiessinger (UT), are receiving free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

Both employees filed petitions last year asking the NLRB to hold decertification elections so they could vote to remove SBWU from their workplace. However, at SBWU union officials’ request, the NLRB dismissed the petitions “subject to reinstatement” when the unfair labor practice case, Starbucks Corporation (01-CA-305952), was resolved. That case has now been closed and resolved.

With that case now resolved, the Starbucks petitioners ask the NLRB Regional Directors in Region 14 (covering Oklahoma City) and Region 27 (covering Salt Lake City) to reinstate their respective petitions so the NLRB can promptly schedule a secret ballot election to determine whether a majority of workers want to end union officials’ monopoly power at each store.

Smith submitted her decertification petition to the NLRB on October 4, 2023, while Fiessinger requested her vote to remove SBWU officials on July 25, 2023.  Both petitions had enough employees’ signatures to meet the 30% necessary to trigger a decertification vote.

Oklahoma and Utah are both Right to Work states, meaning union payments must be voluntary and cannot be required as a condition of employment. However, under federal law, SBWU officials’ monopoly bargaining powers still allow them to impose a union contract on all employees at the store, even those who are not union members and who oppose SBWU’s so-called “representation.” A successful decertification vote would strip union officials of that extraordinary monopoly bargaining power.

The growing movement among Starbucks partners to eject unwanted union officials from their stores is part of a larger trend, with a 40% increase in worker decertification petitions from 2020 to 2023. Already, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys have assisted Starbucks employees in over a dozen stores seeking votes to remove the SBWU union, however union officials have so far manipulated federal labor law to block any decertification votes from being held.

“These workers have waited over a year to finally have their decertification vote to decide whether or not they want the union in their workplace, and with the blocking charge now fully resolved, the NLRB should promptly schedule these elections,” commented Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Majority support is supposed to be fundamental to federal labor law, otherwise the NLRB is just protecting incumbent union bosses to the detriment of actual rank-and-file workers’ wishes. It is past time for these votes to be allowed to take place.”