A US labor agency denounces that Starbucks threatened its employees for organizing in unions

MADRID, 17 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an independent agency of the United States Government, has denounced that the Starbucks company threatened the employees of ten of its stores in the states of Washington and Oregon for the fact to be unionized.

The leadership of the NLRB has explained that the letters received by the employees of this chain of coffee shops pressuring them to give up the possibility of unionizing violate federal laws.

In them, they were warned that if they joined the union, negotiations with the company, if they were successful, could last up to a year and meanwhile their wages would be "frozen."

The company "has been interfering, restricting and coercing employees in the exercise of their rights, guaranteed in labor laws," says the NLRB complaint, according to the Bloomberg news agency.

The freezing of benefits during contract negotiations has been a major point in the fight between the company and the unions. In May, Starbucks announced a package of new wage increases and benefits that take effect in August except for those coffee shops that have a union, which is a measure of intimidation according to these workers' organizations.

However, establishments in the states of Washington and Oregon are not the only ones affected, as employees of other coffee shops in various parts of the country have reported. This is the case of Michelle Hejduk, a worker from Arizona, who through the Starbucks Workers United has indicated that these types of letters have been sent to other parts of the country.

This is not the first time that the NLRB has targeted Starbucks for its anti-union practices and the right of its workers to organize. In the absence of agreements, complaints can be appealed before a federal judge. The company, which can order changes in company policies, cannot make employers compensate for previous damages caused.

For its part, the company, which has always denied these practices, this week also accused the NLRB of secretly colluding with one of the groups that organizes workers, the Starbucks Workers United, a union elected in more than 220 of the 9,000 cafeterias managed by the company in the United States.

Starbucks Workers United, which has won nearly 80 percent of the elections it has run in, has called these accusations "absurd" and a way to distract from the company's anti-union campaigns.