Starbucks violated labor law last summer when it fired a barista who helped organize a union at his Hyde Park coffee shop, a judge for the National Labor Relations Board ruled Tuesday.
The coffee giant also illegally threatened workers at the Hyde Park cafe and another location in Edgewater last year, administrative law judge Geoffrey Carter ruled. Managers at those stores threatened baristas that they could lose benefits or opportunities for raises as a result of the union campaign, Carter ruled.
Baristas at the Hyde Park store, at 1174 E. 55th St., voted to unionize last June. Workers at the Edgewater store, at 1070 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., voted to do so last May, weeks after the incident in which Carter found Starbucks had illegally threatened workers there.
The Bryn Mawr Starbucks was one of the first in Chicago to unionize. Starbucks closed the store last fall, a decision it attributed to “ongoing safety issues impacting customers and partners.” Workers United, the Service Employees International Union affiliate that represents Starbucks employees, blasted the closure as union-busting.
The labor board judge’s ruling comes after a hearing held at the NLRB offices in downtown Chicago in February. The Starbucks union first filed the allegations of unfair labor practices between May and August 2022. The labor board’s regional director issued complaints in those cases last summer, after which the allegations moved to trial.
Carter dismissed some allegations against Starbucks included in the complaints, including by finding it was not illegal when a manager told a worker at a store in Palmer Square that they could not wear union apparel at work.
The company must offer to reinstate the Hyde Park barista it fired, Jasper Booth-Hodges, to his job or a “substantially equivalent” one, Carter ruled. The company must also compensate Booth-Hodges for any loss of earnings he suffered as a result of his firing.
In a statement, Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull said that company policy “strictly prohibits any retaliatory behavior directed toward partners who are interested in a union.” Starbucks has created a “robust training program to further management adherence to the complex patchwork of labor and employment law,” Trull said.
“Where partners have been subject to corrective action — including separation — it is because they violated Starbucks’ established policies and procedures,” Trull wrote.
On Tuesday, Carter ruled that Booth-Hodges had been fired “because he engaged in union and protected concerted activities.”
Starbucks can appeal the judge’s findings; Trull said the company was exploring options related to potential appeals.
In an interview with the Tribune last summer, Booth-Hodges acknowledged he had sometimes been late to work — the reason Starbucks gave for his termination — but maintained he had been targeted by the company for his union activity.
“They had one thing on me, and it was that I was a full-time student and overslept sometimes, and they used it to get rid of me,” Booth-Hodges said at the time.
Booth-Hodges had first started talking to co-workers about forming a union in fall 2021, when he signed a union authorization card and collected cards from fellow baristas, according to Carter’s decision. He was fired by the company last August.
Kathy Hanshew, the president of the Chicago and Midwest Joint Board of Workers United and the international vice president of Workers United, said in a statement that Tuesday’s ruling “confirms that Starbucks is willing to break the law through retaliation, intimidation and firing of workers to deny their lawful right to form a union.”
Carter ruled Tuesday that Starbucks must cease and desist from threatening employees at the Hyde Park and Bryn Mawr stores and post a notice at each store informing workers of their rights under federal labor law, though the company closed the latter store last year. At the Hyde Park store, Starbucks must hold a meeting during which a manager will read the notice aloud to employees.
Starbucks has pushed back hard against the union campaign brewing in its coffee shops. The company had been ordered by labor board officials or judges to reinstate nearly two dozen employees it has fired across the country, according to the NLRB. Appeals in several of those cases are pending, according to the labor board.
“In instances where others have filed claims against Starbucks for alleged violations of labor law, we have continued to defend ourselves where we believe the claims are unfounded,” Trull said.
In October, the labor board’s regional director in Chicago alleged the company had fired another area barista in Wilmette for attempting to form a union. Starbucks denies it fired that worker in retaliation for union activity; a hearing in that case is scheduled for August.
As of last week, just over 300 of Starbucks’ approximately 9,300 U.S. company-owned cafes had unionized, according to the NLRB. There are about a dozen unionized Starbucks in the Chicago area.
