Branford Starbucks Petitions National Labor Board To Unionize

BRANFORD, CT —Workers at the North Main Street Starbucks filed a petition Tuesday with the National Labor Relations Board to unionize with Starbucks Workers United.

In a letter to Starbucks interim CEO and multi-billionaire, Howard Schultz, Branford workers wrote, "policies implemented within the past five years to be detrimental to our goal at Starbucks and often at the expense of the workers themselves."

“Hours have been drastically cut without notice,” they wrote, noting that “unpredictable changes in our income have been severely detrimental to our mental and financial wellbeing.”

A member of the Branford store's organizing committee is quoted as saying the company is not listening to workers.

“Starbucks likes to tell its partners that it’s listening to us, but we don’t often see that when it comes time to hand down decisions that directly affect stores and partners,” employee Joann Lehr said. "I look forward to having a voice loud enough with my partners together to have a conversation with Starbucks."

Patch located the filing, dated Tuesday, to the NLRB, noting that the store's 22 employees, to include full-time and regular part-time baristas, shift supervisors, and assistant store managers and not the store manager, wish to join Starbucks Workers United.

Branford Starbucks workers ... by Ellyn Santiago

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The Branford Starbucks employees' effort marks the third Connecticut store to file, along with unionized Vernon and West Hartford stores.

To date, nearly 300 stores and more than 7,000 baristas organizing for "better working conditions and a seat at the table," according to Workers United.

Workers United wrote in a news release announcing the move to unionize that Starbucks Workers United has "more new unions formed in 12 months than any US company in the last 20 years."

"New stores are filing for and winning union elections every week, despite Starbucks’ ruthless union-busting campaign that’s included firing nearly 200 union leaders across the country and shuttering union stores," its release reads.

According to the National Labor Relations Board, scores of official complaints against the company have been made. Allegations include coercive actions, like surveillance, employment terms and conditions changes, and coercive statements to include threats, promises of benefits, and the like.

Workers United said that with more than 1,300 violations, Starbucks is "one of the worst violators of federal labor law in history."