A federal judge ruled that management at a local Starbucks store violated labor law when its employees tried to unionize last year.
The ruling says managers at the Starbucks at 21st and Amidon told employees they could lose their benefits if they unionized.
Management also told the workers they reduced store hours and stopped hiring new employees because of the union drive, according to the ruling.
The store was ordered to end the anti-union activity. It will also have to provide a document to employees that outlines their rights to organize and details the store’s violations.
There is no fine associated with the offense.
Maia Cuellar-Serafini is a former barista who helped lead the union drive at the store. She was named in the ruling as one of the employees whose benefits were threatened.
“I am so grateful for this verdict,” she said. “It means that the truth is out.
“It tells everyone who Starbucks really is: a multi-billion-dollar company who is determined to undermine the rights of workers any way they can.”
Cuellar-Serafini, who now works as a union organizer, says she hopes the ruling will make other Starbucks employees in the state feel confident that their rights will be protected.
A Starbucks spokesperson sent this statement in response to KMUW’s request for comment on the ruling:
“We believe the decision and the remedies ordered are inappropriate given the record in this matter, and we intend to file numerous exceptions to the decision as we pursue further legal review.”
Workers at the coffee shop were the first in Wichita to organize a union drive at Starbucks in May 2022. The union drive ultimately failed three months later.
The National Labor Relations Board has found that Starbucks has broken labor law at least 130 times since workers in several states began organizing in 2021, according to a reportfrom the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Click here to read the full ruling from the NLRB.
