Starbucks Corp., facing a growing union push across its cafes, is appealing to the National Labor Relations Board, claiming that government employees interfered with and influenced election results in certain stores.
The coffee company said in a letter to the labor board that NLRB personnel coordinated secretly with Workers United union agents to arrange for in-person voting during mail-in elections. The letter also says that NLRB officials gave union agents real-time, confidential vote counts that allowed them to then target certain Starbucks staff who hadn’t yet cast a ballot, thus affecting election results.
“In light of these types of misconduct by NLRB personnel, we request the board immediately suspend all Starbucks mail-ballot elections nationwide,” Starbucks said in the letter dated Monday. The company expects the suspension to continue “until there has been a thorough investigation, the outcome has been made public, and safeguards to prevent future misconduct have been implemented.”
