Over the past year and a half, news of Starbucks workers organizing across the country has broken headlines — as have reports of the aggressive and illegal union-busting actions the company has taken in response. Since the first Starbucks store voted to unionize in December 2021 in Buffalo, NY, more than 500 unfair labor practice charges have been filed against the company. Despite the hostile anti-union efforts of the company, more than 300 Starbucks stores across the country have voted for union representation. But along the way, workers have been illegally fired, threatened, and intimidated by the company for their efforts to organize for better wages and working conditions.
As Sharon Block, Executive Director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy and Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School, has said, “it just shouldn’t be this hard.” Workers have the right to organize without interference from their employers and engage in collective bargaining. Companies must be held accountable for breaking the law, no matter how big they are.
Block testifies before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on the labor law violations committed by Starbucks on Wednesday, March 29 at 10:00AM ET. Watch the livestream of “No Company is Above the Law: The Need to End Illegal Union Busting at Starbucks”.
