“The company has sent more managers here to Buffalo than workers voting in the first three elections. Dozens of corporate executives have flooded stores with the intent to deter workers from voting to unionize, workers say. Workers have reported numerous captive audience meetings, one-on-one meetings, store shutdowns, closures, remodelings, and text messages – a mode of contact that was previously used only for emergencies. If successful, the stores would be the first Starbucks corporate locations to unionize in the US. Westlake’s experience is just one part of an aggressive anti-union campaign run by the giant coffee chain as six Starbucks stores in the Buffalo, New York, area have filed for union elections with the National Labor Relations Board in recent weeks. Westlake emphasized the numerous anti-union meetings have been framed as listening sessions, but it’s the workers who have been doing most of the listening: the sessions have largely consisted of management presenting anti-union talking points, with little feedback from workers involved. And then they went back and forth talking about how great all the benefits are at Starbucks and if we vote in a union, we may not have any of those benefits.” “They started off by going around and saying that they wanted me to vote no for the union.
“That was basically how my last anti-union meeting was, totally separated from the rest of my co-workers and having to be surrounded,” said Westlake.
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