Starbucks settles latest labor complaint

For a company that touts its business ethics and global corporate responsibility, Starbucks continues to do its best to keep up with Wal-Mart and prove on a regular basis why the Employee Free Choice Act is badly needed. Today, Starbucks settled its latest labor complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.

Pursuant to the settlement which stems from charges filed by the IWW Starbucks Workers Union, the corporation must cease engaging in a slew of illegal measures including threatening to call security to interfere with protected activity, prohibiting workers from discussing the union, and expelling union sympathizers from company stores. Today’s settlement is the first since a Labor Board judge found Starbucks guilty last December of similar rights violations in the first ever trial between baristas and the coffee chain.

This complaint is one in a growing series of charges by workers facing intimidation and union-busting tactics. Similar complaints have been filed with the NLRB over the past few years.

Last year the federal agency accused the coffee chain of firing an East Grand Rapids worker for supporting unionization efforts, as documented by the Michigan Messenger. Two years ago the NLRB’s New York office leveled 30 labor-law violations against the company.

Join over 14,000 other people and sign the memo to Howard Schultz today, and send a message that the Pacific Northwest, the home of Starbucks, insists that harassment, intimidation and termination of workers who seek to unionize cease immediately.