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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Starbucks violated federal labor law when it increased wages and offered new perks and benefits only to non-union employees, a National Labor Relations Board judge found Thursday.
The decision is the latest in a series of NLRB rulings finding that Starbucks has violated labor law in its efforts to stop unions from forming in its coffee shops.
“The issue at the heart of this case is whether, under current Board law, [Starbucks] was entitled to explicitly reward employees,” for not participating in union activity, “while falsely telling its workers that the federal labor law forced it to take this action,” wrote administrative law judge Mara-Louise Anzalone. “It was not.”
My old job had quite a few of these legally mandated “whoopsie we crossed the line a bit and got our hands slapped by the NLRB” posters around. The print was tiny and it covered the whole corkboard, basically just quoting the exact text of labor laws all written in impenetrable legalize. They weren’t exactly causing a wave of class consciousness among the workers.
Oh also there were cameras watching the posters.
Tbh, I’m betting more on the news than on the posters. Starbucks workers will see this shared via social media and such. Or so I hope. This is not at all certain, yet I think it might damage Starbucks more than some fine that will not change anything for the workers either.
Surely concrete, actual monetary damage is more discouraging than some kind of class solidarity revelation that has yet to spark from a news article being shared. It’s not like doing this precludes them also getting a fine. Being unable to do this without serious repercussions would harm them a great deal more, in my opinion.