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    Labor Agency Seeks Broad Order Against Starbucks in Federal Court

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    Federal labor regulators have asked a court to force Starbucks to stop what they say is extensive illegal activity in response to a nationwide campaign in which workers at more than 150 corporate-owned stores have voted to unionize.In a petition filed Tuesday with U.S. District Court in Buffalo, officials with the National Labor Relations Board accused the company of firing and disciplining union supporters; intimidating and threatening workers to discourage them from voting for the union; and effectively offering benefits to workers if they opposed the union.The agency is also seeking the reinstatement of seven Buffalo-area employees whom, it said, Starbucks had illegally forced out in retaliation for their union-organizing activities, and an order effectively recognizing the union in a Buffalo-area store where the union lost a vote despite strong initial support.The agency said in its filings that the court’s intervention was necessary to stop Starbucks’s “virulent, widespread and well-orchestrated response to employees’ protected organizing efforts” and that without the proposed remedies, Starbucks would “accomplish its unlawful objective of chilling union support, both in Buffalo and nationwide.”Reggie Borges, a Starbucks spokesman, rejected the accusations. “As we have said previously, we believe these claims are false and will be prepared to defend our case,” Mr. Borges wrote in an email.Matt Bodie, a former lawyer for the labor board who teaches labor law at St. Louis University, said it was not unusual for the agency to seek reinstatement of ousted workers. But he said the nationwide breadth of the injunction the agency was seeking was far less common, as was the request for the court to order recognition of a union at a store where the union initially lost its election.“It’s a big step in line with the Biden board’s commitment to a more rigorous and aggressive approach to labor law enforcement,” Mr. Bodie wrote in an email.The labor board has already issued more than 30 formal complaints finding merit in allegations similar to the ones it cataloged in its petition on Tuesday. It typically takes months or years to adjudicate such complaints, and the board asserted that allowing the process to run its course while the company continued to break the law would “cement this chill and nullify the impact of a final remedy.”The agency said that unlawful anti-union activity had begun shortly after workers in Buffalo went public with their union campaign in late August, and that it had escalated after two Buffalo-area stores won union votes in December. It said Starbucks had forced out several union supporters for violating rules that the company had not previously enforced.The company “quickly jettisoned its past practices to target union supporters more effectively,” the labor board wrote.A federal judge recently denied the labor board’s request to reinstate pro-union workers it said Starbucks had unlawfully forced out in a similar, if narrower, case in Arizona.The judge found that in the case of two workers, there was not evidence of retaliation for union activities, or the evidence was “inconsistent” with the accusations.In the case of a third worker, the judge found that both sides had arguments supporting their positions and that an administrative proceeding might ultimately show that Starbucks sought to retaliate over the worker’s union activities. But the judge concluded that Starbucks would have fired the worker even absent her union involvement. More

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    Starbucks Executive, Prominent in Push Against Union Drive, Will Leave

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    Starbucks said Friday that an executive who played a key role in the company’s response to a growing union campaign would leave by the end of the month.In a letter to employees, whom Starbucks calls “partners,” the company’s chief operating officer said that Rossann Williams, the president of retail for North America, would be leaving after 17 years at the company. The letter said the decision was “preceded by discussion about a next opportunity for Rossann within the company, which she declined.”John Culver, the chief operating officer, added in the letter that Ms. Williams “has not only been a fierce advocate for our partners, but she has been a champion of our mission, our culture and operational excellence.”Since December, when a store in Buffalo became the only one of Starbucks roughly 9,000 corporate-owned stores with a union, the campaign has spread rapidly across the country.The union has won over 80 percent of the more than 175 elections in which the National Labor Relations Board has declared a winner, and workers have formally sought elections at more than 275 stores in all.After workers at three Buffalo-area stores filed for union elections in August, Ms. Williams went to the city and spent much of the fall there leading the company’s response to the campaign. She spent many hours in stores, asking employees about concerns they had at their workplaces and even pitching in on tasks like throwing out garbage.But some workers said the presence of such a high-ranking official in their stores was intimidating and even “surreal.”Labor experts also raised concerns that Ms. Williams and other Starbucks officials deployed to the stores could be violating labor laws by intimidating workers and effectively offering to improve working conditions if employees voted against unionizing.The National Labor Relations Board later issued a complaint against the company along these lines, after investigating and finding merit to the accusations.The company denied that it had violated the law and has long said that it is seeking to address operational issues like understaffing and inadequate training, efforts it said had preceded the organizing campaign.In response to a question about whether she or the company might be undermining the conditions for a fair union election, Ms. Williams said in an interview in October that she had no choice but to intervene.“If I went to a market and saw the condition some of these stores are in, and I didn’t do anything about it, it would be so against my job,” she said at the time. “There’s no way I could come here and say I’m not going to do anything.”Mr. Culver’s letter said that Ms. Williams would be replaced by Sara Trilling, who most recently oversaw the company’s operations in the Asia-Pacific region. More

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    Why Union Efforts at Starbucks Have Spread Further Than at Amazon

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    Why has the union campaign spread so much further at the coffee chain than at the e-commerce giant?Roughly six weeks after successful union votes at two Buffalo-area Starbucks stores in December, workers had filed paperwork to hold union elections in at least 20 other Starbucks locations nationwide.By contrast, since the Amazon Labor Union’s victory last month in a vote at a huge warehouse on Staten Island, workers at just one other Amazon facility have filed for a union election — with an obscure union with a checkered past — before promptly withdrawing their petition.The difference may come as a surprise to those who believed that organizing at Amazon might follow the explosive pattern witnessed at Starbucks, where workers at more than 250 stores have filed for elections and the union has prevailed at a vast majority of the locations that have voted.Christian Smalls, the president of the independent Amazon Labor Union, told NPR shortly after the victory that his group had heard from workers in 50 other Amazon facilities, adding, “Just like the Starbucks movement, we want to spread like wildfire across the nation.”The two campaigns share some features — most notably, both are largely overseen by workers rather than professional organizers. And the Amazon Labor Union has made more headway at Amazon than most experts expected, and more than any established union.But unionizing workers at Amazon was always likely to be a longer, messier slog given the scale of its facilities and the nature of the workplace. “Amazon is so much harder a nut to crack,” John Logan, a labor studies professor at San Francisco State University, said by email. The union recently lost a vote at a smaller warehouse on Staten Island.To win, a union must get the backing of more than 50 percent of the workers who cast a vote. That means 15 or 20 pro-union workers can ensure victory in a typical Starbucks store — a level of support that can be summoned in hours or days. At Amazon warehouses, a union frequently would have to win hundreds or thousands of votes.Organizers for the Amazon Labor Union spent hundreds of hours talking with co-workers inside the warehouse during breaks, after work and on days off. They held cookouts at a bus stop outside the warehouse and communicated with hundreds of colleagues through WhatsApp groups.Brian Denning, who leads an Amazon organizing campaign sponsored by the Democratic Socialists of America chapter in Portland, Ore., said his group had received six or seven inquiries a week from Amazon workers and contractors after the Staten Island victory, versus one or two a week beforehand.But Mr. Denning, a former Amazon warehouse employee who tells workers that they are the ones who must lead a union campaign, said that many didn’t realize how much effort unionizing required, and that some became discouraged once he conferred with them.Understand the Unionization Efforts at AmazonBeating Amazon: A homegrown, low-budget push to unionize at a Staten Island warehouse led to a historic labor victory. (Workers at another nearby Amazon facility rejected joining a similar effort shortly after.)Retaliation: Weeks after the landmark win, Amazon fired several managers in Staten Island. Some see it as retaliation for their involvement in the unionization efforts.A New Playbook: The success of the Amazon union’s independent drive has organized labor asking whether it should take more of a back seat.Amazon’s Approach: The company has countered unionization efforts with mandatory “training” sessions that carry clear anti-union messages.“We get people saying how do we get an A.L.U. situation here? How do we do that like they did?” Mr. Denning said, adding: “I don’t want to scare them away. But I can’t lie to workers. This is what it is. It’s not for everyone.”At Starbucks, employees work together in a relatively small space, sometimes without a manager present to supervise them directly for hours at a time. This allows them to openly discuss concerns about pay and working conditions and the merits of a union.At Amazon, the warehouses are cavernous, and workers are often more isolated and more closely supervised, especially during an organizing campaign.“What they would do is strategically separate me from everyone in my department,” said Derrick Palmer, an Amazon employee on Staten Island who is one of the union’s vice presidents. “If they see me interacting with that person, they would move them to a different station.”Asked about the allegation, Amazon said it assigned employees to work stations and tasks based on operational needs.Both companies have accused the unions of their own unfair tactics, including intimidating workers and inciting hostile confrontations.Organizing drivers is an even greater challenge, partly because they are officially employed by contractors that Amazon hires, though labor organizers say they would like to pressure the company to address drivers’ concerns.Christy Cameron, a former driver at an Amazon facility near St. Louis, said the job’s setup largely kept drivers from interacting. At the beginning of each shift, a manager for the contractor briefs drivers, who then disperse to their trucks, help load them and get on the road.“It leaves very little time to talk with co-workers outside of a hello,” Ms. Cameron said in a text message, adding that Amazon’s training discouraged discussing working conditions with fellow drivers. “It was generally how they are highly against unionizing and don’t talk about pay and benefits with each other.”Amazon, with about a million U.S. workers, and Starbucks, with just under 250,000, offer similar pay. Amazon has said that its minimum hourly wage is $15 and that the average starting wage in warehouses is above $18. Starbucks has said that as of August its minimum hourly wage will be $15 and that the average will be nearly $17.Starbucks workers celebrated the results of a vote to unionize in Buffalo last year.Joshua Bessex/Associated PressDespite the similarity in pay, organizers say the dynamics of the companies’ work forces can be quite different.At the Staten Island warehouse where Amazon workers voted against unionizing, many employees work four-hour shifts and commute 30 to 60 minutes each way, suggesting they have limited alternatives.“People who go to that length for a four-hour job — it’s a particular group of people who are really struggling to make it,” said Gene Bruskin, a longtime labor organizer who advised the Amazon Labor Union in the two Staten Island elections, in an interview last month.As a result of all this, organizing at Amazon may involve incremental gains rather than high-profile election victories. In the Minneapolis area, a group of primarily Somali-speaking Amazon workers has staged protests and received concessions from the company, such as a review process for firings related to productivity targets. Chicago-area workers involved in the group Amazonians United received pay increases not long after a walkout in December.Ted Miin, an Amazon worker who is one of the group’s members, said the concessions had followed eight or nine months of organizing, versus the minimum of two years he estimates it would have taken to win a union election and negotiate a first contract.For workers who seek a contract, the processes for negotiating one at Starbucks and Amazon may differ. In most cases, bargaining for improvements in compensation and working conditions requires additional pressure on the employer.At Starbucks, that pressure is in some sense the union’s momentum from election victories. “The spread of the campaign gives the union the ability to win in bargaining,” Mr. Logan said. (Starbucks has nonetheless said it will withhold new pay and benefit increases from workers who have unionized, saying such provisions must be bargained.)At Amazon, by contrast, the pressure needed to win a contract will probably come through other means. Some are conventional, like continuing to organize warehouse employees, who could decide to strike if Amazon refuses to recognize them or bargain. The company is challenging the union victory on Staten Island.But the union is also enlisting political allies with an eye toward pressuring Amazon. Mr. Smalls, the union president, testified this month at a Senate hearing that was exploring whether the federal government should deny contracts to companies that violate labor laws.On Thursday, Senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, introduced legislation seeking to prevent employers from deducting anti-union activity, like hiring consultants to dissuade workers from unionizing, as a business expense.While many of these efforts may be more symbolic than substantive, some appear to have gotten traction. After the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced last summer that it was awarding Amazon a 20-year lease at Newark Liberty International Airport to develop an air cargo hub, a coalition of community, labor and environmental groups mobilized against the project.The status of the lease, which was to become final by late last year, remains unclear. The Port Authority said that lease negotiations with Amazon were continuing and that it continued to seek community input. An Amazon spokeswoman said the company was confident the deal would close.A spokeswoman for Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey indicated that the company might have to negotiate with labor groups before the deal could go forward. “The governor encourages anyone doing business in our state to work collaboratively with labor partners in good faith,” the spokeswoman said.Karen Weise More

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    NLRB Finds Merit in Union Accusations Against Amazon and Starbucks

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    In a sign that federal labor officials are closely scrutinizing management behavior during union campaigns, the National Labor Relations Board said Friday that it had found merit in accusations that Amazon and Starbucks had violated labor law.At Amazon, the labor board found merit to charges that the company had required workers to attend anti-union meetings at a vast Staten Island warehouse where the Amazon Labor Union won a stunning election victory last month. The determination was communicated to the union Friday by an attorney for the labor board’s regional office in Brooklyn, according to Seth Goldstein, a lawyer representing the union.Such meetings, often known as “captive audience” meetings, are legal under current labor board precedent. But last month, the board’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, issued a memo saying that the precedent was at odds with the underlying federal statute, and she indicated that she would seek to challenge it.In the same filing of charges, the Amazon Labor Union accused the company of threatening to withhold benefits from employees if they voted to unionize, and of inaccurately indicating to employees that they could be fired if the warehouse were to unionize and they failed to pay union dues. The labor board also found merit to these accusations, according to an email from the attorney at the regional office, Matt Jackson.Mr. Jackson said the agency would soon issue a complaint reflecting those accusations unless Amazon settled the case. The complaint would be litigated before an administrative law judge, whose decision could be appealed to the labor board in Washington.Understand the Unionization Efforts at AmazonBeating Amazon: A homegrown, low-budget push to unionize at a Staten Island warehouse led to a historic labor victory. (Workers at another nearby Amazon facility rejected joining a similar effort shortly after.)Retaliation: Weeks after the landmark win, Amazon fired several managers in Staten Island. Some see it as retaliation for their involvement in the unionization efforts.A New Playbook: The success of the Amazon union’s independent drive has organized labor asking whether it should take more of a back seat.Amazon’s Approach: The company has countered unionization efforts with mandatory “training” sessions that carry clear anti-union messages.Mr. Goldstein applauded Ms. Abruzzo and the regional office for taking “decisive steps ending required captive audience meetings” and said the right to unionize “will be protected by ending Amazon’s inherently coercive work practices.”Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement that “these allegations are false and we look forward to showing that through the process.”At Starbucks, where the union has won initial votes at more than 50 stores since December, the labor board issued a complaint Friday over a series of charges the union filed, most of them in February, accusing the company of illegal behavior. Those accusations include firing employees in retaliation for supporting the union; threatening employees’ ability to receive new benefits if they choose to unionize; requiring workers to be available for a minimum number of hours to remain employed at a unionized store without bargaining over the change, as a way to force out at least one union supporter; and effectively promising benefits to workers if they decide not to unionize.In addition to those allegations, the labor board found merit to accusations that the company intimidated workers by closing Buffalo-area stores and engaging in surveillance of workers while they were on the job. All of those actions would be illegal.In a statement, Starbucks Workers United, the branch of the union representing workers there, said that the finding “confirms the extent and depravity of Starbucks’s conduct in Western New York for the better part of a year.” It added: “Starbucks will be held accountable for the union-busting minefield they forced workers to walk through in fighting for their right to organize.”Starbucks said in a statement that the complaint doesn’t constitute a judgment by the labor board, adding, “We believe the allegations contained in the complaint are false, and we look forward to presenting our evidence when the allegations are adjudicated.” More

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    Labor board issues complaint against Starbucks in firing of 7 workers.

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    The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against Starbucks on Friday for what the agency said was the unlawful firing of seven employees in Memphis in retaliation for seeking to unionize.The labor board said the company fired the workers in February because they “joined or assisted the union and engaged in concerted activities, and to discourage employees from engaging in these activities.”The employees are part of a wave of organizing at Starbucks in which workers have voted to unionize at more than 20 stores and filed petitions to hold votes at more than 200. The company has roughly 9,000 corporate-owned locations nationwide.Complaints are issued after a labor board regional office concludes that there is merit to accusations against employers or unions and are litigated before an administrative law judge. The regional office is seeking to require that Starbucks make the fired employees whole — for example, by reimbursing them for lost wages. The company could appeal an adverse decision to the national labor board in Washington.“Although we are excited about the news, we knew from the moment each of us were terminated that this would be the outcome,” Nikki Taylor, one of the fired workers, said in a statement. “We are excited for the public to know the truth and to return to work at our soon-to-be-unionized Starbucks.”Starbucks did not immediately comment but said at the time that it had fired the workers for violating safety and security policies, including allowing members of the media into the store to conduct interviews after hours and failing to wear masks during the encounter. More

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    Starbucks Union Campaign Continues Its Momentum

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    Starbucks workers have added to the momentum of a union campaign that went public in late August and has upended decades of union-free labor at the company’s corporate-owned stores.On Thursday and Friday, workers at six stores in upstate New York voted to unionize, according to the National Labor Relations Board, bringing the total number of company-owned stores where workers have backed a union to 16. The union, Workers United, was also leading by a wide margin at a store in Kansas whose votes were tallied Friday, but the number of challenged ballots leaves the outcome officially in doubt until their status can be resolved.The union has lost only a single election so far, but it is formally challenging the outcome.Since the union secured its first two victories in elections that concluded in December, workers at more than 175 other stores across at least 25 states have filed for union elections, out of roughly 9,000 corporate-owned stores in the United States. The labor board will count ballots in at least three more stores next week.The organizing success at Starbucks appears to reflect a growing interest among workers in unionizing, including the efforts at Amazon, where workers last week voted to unionize a Staten Island warehouse by a significant margin.On Wednesday, the general counsel of the labor board, Jennifer Abruzzo, announced that union election filings were up more than 50 percent during the previous six months versus the same period one year earlier. Ms. Abruzzo expressed concern that funding and staff shortages were making it difficult for the agency to keep up with the activity, saying in a statement that the board “needs a significant increase of funds to fully effectuate the mission of the agency.”Starbucks has sought to persuade workers not to unionize by holding anti-union meetings with workers and conversations between managers and individual employees, but some employees say the meetings have only galvanized their support for organizing.In some cases, Starbucks has also sent a number of senior officials to stores from out of town, a move the company says is intended to address operational issues like staffing and training but which some union supporters have said they find intimidating.The union has accused Starbucks of seeking to cut back hours nationally as a way to encourage longtime employees to leave the company and replace them with workers who are more skeptical about unionizing. And the union argues that Starbucks has retaliated against workers for supporting the union by disciplining or firing them. Last month, the labor board issued a formal complaint against Starbucks for retaliating against two Arizona employees, a step it takes after finding merit in accusations against employers or unions.The company has denied that it has cut hours to prompt employees to leave, saying it schedules workers in response to customer demand, and it has rejected accusations of anti-union activity.As the union campaign accelerated in March, the company announced that Kevin Johnson, who had served as chief executive since 2017, would be replaced on an interim basis by Howard Schultz, who had led the company twice before and remained one of its largest investors.Some investors who had warned Mr. Johnson that the company’s anti-union tactics could damage its reputation expressed optimism that the leadership change might bring about a shift in Starbucks’s posture toward the union. But the company soon announced that it would not agree to stay neutral in union elections, as the union has requested, dampening those hopes.On Monday, the same day that Mr. Schultz returned as chief executive, the company fired Laila Dalton, one of the two Arizona workers the N.L.R.B. had accused Starbucks of retaliating against in March. The company said that Ms. Dalton had violated company rules by recording co-workers’ conversations without their permission.“A partner’s interest in a union does not exempt them from the standards we have always held,” Reggie Borges, a company spokesman, said in a statement, using the company’s term for an employee. More

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    NLRB Issues a Complaint Against Starbucks

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    The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against Starbucks on Tuesday over accusations that it retaliated against two employees seeking to unionize their store in Phoenix.The workers are part of a campaign that has created unions at six stores in the Buffalo area and Arizona since December, out of roughly 9,000 company-owned stores nationwide. Overall, workers at more than 100 Starbucks locations have filed for union elections during that time.The formal complaint — something a regional office of the labor board issues after investigating and finding merit in accusations against employers or unions — is the first of the current Starbucks campaign. It contends that Starbucks issued a written warning to one employee and suspended her, and rejected the scheduling preferences of a second employee, leading to her termination, because the employees supported the union.In addition, the complaint states that the first employee, Laila Dalton, was suspended and disciplined for raising concerns about wages, hours and insufficient staffing on behalf of co-workers, and that the retaliation was intended to discourage other employees from raising similar concerns, even though it is their legal right to do so.If the regional office is successful in prosecuting the case through an administrative law judge, Starbucks will have to advise employees of their rights to engage in protected activities like complaining about wages and staffing. The company would also have to make the second employee, Alyssa Sanchez, whole for the losses she suffered as a result of her effective termination. The agency could seek other remedies as well. The company could appeal the decision to the full N.L.R.B. in Washington.“Today is the first step in holding Starbucks accountable for its unacceptable behavior during the unionizing efforts in our store and stores around the country,” Bill Whitmire, a barista at the store who is involved in the union campaign, said in a statement. “Laila and Alyssa were traumatized, and their hope is that no other partner EVER has to go through what they have gone through.”Reggie Borges, a company spokesman, reiterated previous denials of accusations of anti-union activity.The union representing Starbucks employees, Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, has brought similar charges on behalf of other workers around the country, including roughly 20 two weeks ago. More

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    Starbucks Workers at 3 More Buffalo-Area Stores Vote to Unionize

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    Employees at three more Buffalo-area Starbucks have voted to unionize, bringing the total number of company-owned stores with a union to six, out of roughly 9,000 nationwide.The results, announced Wednesday by the National Labor Relations Board, were the latest development in one of the most formidable challenges to a major corporation by organized labor in years. Workers at two Buffalo-area stores voted to unionize in December, while a third store voted to unionize in Mesa, Ariz., last month, dealing a blow to the union-free model that prevailed at the coffee-retailing giant for decades.Since the December votes, workers at more than 100 Starbucks stores in more than 25 states have filed for union elections, in which they are seeking to join Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.Workers in cities including Seattle, Boston, Rochester, N.Y., and Knoxville, Tenn., have begun voting or will do so this month.“These workers fought so hard for their union,” Gary Bonadonna Jr., the leader of Workers United in upstate New York, said in a statement. “We had their backs during this campaign and we’ll continue to have their backs at the bargaining table.”Reggie Borges, a Starbucks spokesman, said in a statement: “We will respect the process and will bargain in good faith guided by our principles. We hope that the union does the same.”The vote counts — 8 to 7, 15 to 12, and 15 to 12 — came as tension between the union and the company has been escalating.The union contends that Starbucks has been systematically cutting hours across the country to prompt the departure of longtime employees so it can replace them with workers who are unsympathetic to unionizing. It also has said Starbucks recently retaliated against pro-union employees in Buffalo by pressuring them to leave the company because they had limited their work availability, and by firing one over time and attendance infractions.In early February, the company fired seven Memphis employees who had sought to unionize, citing safety and security policies.“Starbucks is also using policies that have not previously been enforced, and policies that would not have resulted in termination, as a pretext for firing union leaders,” the union said in a statement, adding that it was confident that the fired workers would be reinstated.Last week, the union filed about 20 unfair labor practice charges, many of which accused Starbucks of singling out union supporters for harsher treatment.Mr. Borges said in an email that “any claims of anti-union activity are categorically false.” He said the company was not systematically cutting hours, which typically fall in the slow winter months of January and February. Starbucks generally tries to honor workers’ preferences for lower availability, he added, but it was unable to at a Buffalo store where several employees had sought to cut their availability at once. He said a worker fired because of time and attendance issues had previously been cited for instances of tardiness.Amy Zdravecky, a management-side lawyer at Barnes & Thornburg, said it was hard to imagine the union losing momentum at this point except as a result of developments at the bargaining table — for example, if the union negotiated a contract that workers considered disappointing.“Until employees see what, if anything, they’re going to get or not get in negotiations, the union has the advantage — they can go out and tell employees that we’ll do all these things for you,” Ms. Zdravecky said.Starbucks workers in Buffalo filed in an initial round of petitions to hold union elections in late August, citing concerns like understaffing and workplace safety amid the pandemic, as well as a desire to have a greater say in how their stores are run.The company soon dispatched out-of-town managers and officials to the city, including Starbucks’s president of retail for North America, whose presence union supporters have said they found intimidating and at times surreal.Starbucks has said the officials were trying to resolve operational issues like poor training and inefficient store layouts. Some emphasized the potential downsides of unionizing in meetings and discussions with workers.The company also substantially increased the number of workers in at least one of the first three stores voting, a move that the company said was to help with understaffing but that the union said was intended to dilute its support. The union later successfully challenged the ballots of some of these workers on the grounds that they weren’t actually based at the store, helping to secure its victory there.Workers at one of the locations where the union won on Wednesday, known as Walden & Anderson, said the company’s approach to their store was even more disruptive than its actions in the Buffalo-area stores that voted in the fall.Starbucks closed the Walden & Anderson store for roughly two months beginning in early September and turned it into a training facility, sending workers to other locations during that time.Colin Cochran was among the pro-union workers at the Starbucks store that was turned into a training facility.Libby March for The New York TimesLeaders of the union campaign at the store said this made it harder for them to communicate with co-workers and maintain support for the union, which had initially been high. “We just didn’t see people for the entire two months we were closed,” said one of the workers seeking to unionize, Colin Cochran. Union supporters did not have access to many of their colleagues’ phone numbers during this time.The store also added workers — from roughly 25 in early September to roughly 40 once the voting began in January. “It felt like every time we got someone on board, two new people would be hired,” Mr. Cochran said of the period after the store reopened in November. “It was like a hydra.” Mr. Cochran and a second worker, Jenna Black, said that the store held workers’ hours fairly steady in the fall and most of the winter, even as the company hired more workers, but that many employees had their hours reduced as the voting came to an end in late February and that some were now considering leaving as a result.“I was holding at 25 hours and then for the past couple of weeks I’ve been down to 16, 18 hours,” Ms. Black said. She added that while she loved her co-workers, “there is no reason to keep devoting my time and making this job a priority when I can’t live off it.”Mr. Cochran said the pattern created the impression that the store wanted the additional workers only in the run-up to the vote, to dilute union support.The union said that workers in several states, including Oregon, Virginia, Ohio, New York, Texas and Colorado, had also reported having their hours cut more than usual for the winter.Michaela Sellaro, a shift supervisor at a Denver store that is seeking to unionize, said she had been scheduled for an average of about 31 hours for the past four weeks after working an average of about 36 hours over the same weeks last year. “It feels like they are threatening our job security,” Ms. Sellaro said.Mr. Borges said that hours had been higher than normal in the fall at Walden & Anderson to provide additional training, but that hours there now reflected customer demand and that the same was true nationally. He cited the Omicron variant of the coronavirus as an additional factor in scheduling nationwide.“We always schedule to what we believe the store needs based on customer behaviors,” he said. “That may mean a change in the hours available, but to say we are cutting hours wouldn’t be accurate.” More