“This isn’t what we signed up for” says NY worker who joins Starbucks partners across the country in demanding union ousters

Albany, NY (March 1, 2024) – A partner of the Stuyvesant Plaza Starbucks in Albany has filed a petition with National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 3, asking the federal agency to hold a vote at her workplace to remove (or “decertify”) the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union. The employee, Rayghan Dowey, received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation in submitting her petition.

“This isn’t what we signed up for, a new team has started to come in [to the Stuyvesant Plaza Starbucks] and we want to make sure that the voice that was once heard is still being heard two years later,” commented Dowey regarding the union. “We want to bring the inclusivity, community, and culture back. The culture we once had, that we were promised to get back, we never got to see.”

Dowey’s petition contains signatures from enough coworkers at her store to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules. Because New York lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, SBWU union bosses can enter into contracts that compel Dowey and her coworkers to pay union dues as a condition of keeping their jobs. In Right to Work states, in contrast, union membership and all union financial support are strictly voluntary.

However, in both Right to Work and non-Right to Work states, union officials in a unionized workplace are empowered by federal law to impose a union contract on all employees in a work unit, including those who oppose the union. A successful decertification vote strips union officials of that power.

Amid Growing Requests to Remove SBWU, Starbucks Workers Also Challenge NLRB Authority

Dowey and her colleagues join Starbucks partners and other coffee company employees across the country in banding together to vote out SBWU union officials. In the past year, Starbucks employees in Manhattan, NY; two Buffalo, NY locations; Pittsburgh, PA; Bloomington, MN; Salt Lake City, UT; Greenville, SC; Oklahoma City, OK; San Antonio, TX; and Philadelphia, PA, have all sought free Foundation legal aid in filing or defending decertification petitions at the NLRB. Foundation attorneys have helped employees at independent Philadelphia coffee shops Good Karma Café and Ultimo Coffee successfully oust Workers United union officials, who are affiliated with SBWU.

Many employees of Starbucks or other coffee establishments are requesting decertification votes from the NLRB roughly one year after union bosses attained power in their workplaces, which is the earliest opportunity afforded by federal law to do so. Starbucks employees in particular were the targets of a multi-year, aggressive unionization campaign by SBWU, in which the union spent millions on paid union agents – including “salts” who obtained jobs at Starbucks locations with the covert mission of installing union power.

However, rather than respect the choice of workers opposed to the union, SBWU union officials are attempting to prevent Starbucks workers nationwide from exercising their right to decertify the union with charges against Starbucks management that are currently holding up the elections. Currently, Foundation staff attorneys are representing workers in about a dozen Starbucks stores seeking decertification votes.

NLRB Request for Review: Region Violating Starbucks Workers’ Rights by Blocking Vote

In fact, Foundation attorneys just filed a request for review with the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, DC, for Indya Fiessinger, a Starbucks employee at a Salt Lake City-area location who filed a petition for a decertification vote. The brief argues an NLRB Regional Director incorrectly applied federal law to block the decertification election requested by the workers at the store, and refused to even hold a hearing on the matter.

Foundation attorneys are also representing Buffalo, NY, and San Antonio, TX, Starbucks workers in challenging the NLRB as an unconstitutionally-structured federal agency. In two federal lawsuits now at the district court level, Starbucks employees argue that NLRB bureaucrats’ removal protections shield them from accountability in violation of separation of powers doctrines in the Constitution.

“Despite the wave of Starbucks workers who want to exercise their right to free themselves from unwanted union representation, SBWU union officials are twisting the law to trap workers under the union’s influence against their will,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “Federal labor law should protect workers who want to exercise their free choice rights, not power-hungry union bosses, and Foundation attorneys are proud to represent Ms. Dowey and other Starbucks workers who oppose SBWU officials’ coercive reign.”

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.