Labor ruling vindicates Starbucks workers over coffee giant's 'widespread misconduct' in union drive

By Gina Christian, OSV News

(OSV News) -- Experts on Catholic social teaching about labor are applauding a March 1 federal decision in favor of Buffalo, New York-area Starbucks workers who successfully fought to unionize coffee shops in the face of tremendous opposition from the corporate giant.

"I think it's a really significant ruling of historic dimensions," Georgetown University history professor Joseph A. McCartin, who directs that school's Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, told OSV News.

Administrative Law Judge Michael A. Rosas with the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, found that Starbucks, which operates more than 36,000 coffee stores worldwide, had violated federal labor law hundreds of times, impeding workers' organizing efforts through "egregious and widespread misconduct."

Offenses included "engaging in surveillance" of employees wearing union pins while monitoring their conversations, as well as disciplining and firing employees expressing support for organizing.

Rosas ordered reinstatement of seven workers deemed unlawfully terminated by the company, along with back pay and damages to more than two dozen workers against whom Starbucks had retaliated for their participation in organizing efforts.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz -- who at one point told the Buffalo-area workers the company's goal was to foster "a fragile balance between profit and doing the right thing" -- will also be required to read or attend a reading of a 10-page notice pledging to avoid labor law violations. A video of the reading is to be distributed.

The company said in a statement it "(believed) the decision and the remedies ordered are inappropriate given the record in this matter," adding it was "considering all options to obtain further legal review."

Union organizer Jaz Brisack, committee member of Starbucks Workers United, told OSV News the ruling was "a very validating decision" that had been "a long time coming."

"For the past 14 months, Starbucks has not only broken … labor law, but literally denied they're doing so, and even denied they're anti-union at all," said Brisack, adding she was "forced out of the company in September 2022" due to her unionizing efforts.

"Too often, workers' ability to exercise their rights covered under the National Labor Relations Act are frustrated by (a company's) firing of the lead organizer, which then sends the message to everybody else, 'Don't do this,'" Father Sinclair Oubre, a priest of the Diocese of Beaumont, Texas, and spiritual moderator of the Catholic Labor Network, told OSV News. "You remove the heads of any kind of (unionizing) drive, and the rest of the workers fall in line."

Such tactics are squarely at odds with Catholic social teaching on workers' rights. Scripture is filled with admonitions on safeguarding the dignity of those who labor, while two papal encyclicals -- such as Pope Leo XIII's "Rerum Novarum" and Pope St. John Paul II's "Laborem Exercens" -- and numerous statements from bishops affirm rights to productive work, decent and fair wages, union organization and membership, and collective bargaining for wages and benefits.

Pope Francis echoed the church's teaching, telling members of the Italian General Confederation of Labor in December, "There is no union without workers, and there are no free workers without a union."

Workers in the U.S. have faced "a long history of management opposition to worker organization," one that "goes way back into the 19th century," said Georgetown's McCartin.

The nation's labor movement emerged in the late 18th century, accelerating throughout the 19th and 20th centuries as workers battled unsafe working conditions, long shifts, insufficient pay and immigrant rights.

But labor movement momentum has regressed in recent years. According to data released Jan. 19 by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation's union membership rate fell in 2022 to 10.1%, the lowest on record.

At the same time, "attention has been drawn away" from Catholic social teaching on labor "as other social issues, such as those around sexuality," have commanded greater focus, said McCartin. "A lot of Catholics aren't aware of how clear the teaching is."

In addition, a disconnect often exists between companies' emphasis on sustainability -- including fair trade and ethical sourcing throughout the supply chain -- and treatment of U.S. workers, said those interviewed by OSV News.

With respect to Starbucks, Brisack said, "I think it's very marketable right now to say you're sustainable and social justice-oriented, but doing that is a whole other thing."

In its 2021 "Global Environmental & Social Impact Report," the company stated that while it "did not believe third-party representation is necessary at Starbucks, we respect our partners' right to organize."

Starbucks did not respond to OSV News' request for clarification as to whether the company had contradicted its statement during the Buffalo-area incidents.

Daniel Graff, director of the Higgins Labor Program at the University of Notre Dame, told OSV News the U.S. "needs a sort of national reckoning as a community" on treatment of workers throughout the food supply chain, from source to cash register.

The implications for a renewed examination of Catholic social teaching on labor are broad -- and urgent, said McCartin.

"I think we've seen a decline in the democratic voice in the workplace," he said. "And that helps to sap the strength of the democratic voice in the larger society as well."