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☆ Chipotle will pay a $240,000 penalty — roughly 1% of its daily revenue— for shutting down a store that tried to unionize
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The settlement is equivalent to the global revenue that Chipotle made in 15 minutes last year. The employees filed a petition to form a union last June — the first time Chipotle employees had taken that step. The payment will be split among the former location's employees, who will receive between $5,800 and $21,000 each based on their seniority, pay rate, and other factors, per the Journal. That math is based on Chipotle locations operating daily, and doesn't include locations closed on major holidays. Under the settlement, Chipotle will also offer the employees "preferential hiring" if they pursue jobs at the company's other locations in Maine.

☆ Chipotle agrees to pay ex-employees after closing store that tried to unionize
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Chipotle Mexican Grill will pay a total $240,000 in salary and back pay to the former employees of an Augusta, Maine, restaurant that the company shuttered after the workers tried to unionize. The settlement payouts — which are based on pay rates, average hours and seniority — will range between $5,800 to more than $21,000 to each of the affected employees. It’s a win for food service workers across the country,” said Brandi McNease, a former Augusta Chipotle employee and lead organizer of the Chipotle United union. But the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees labor relations at most US businesses, filed a complaint in November alleging that the closing was an effort to defeat the union organizing. One other Chipotle location in Lansing, Michigan, has voted to be represented by a union.

☆ Spooked dealmakers scurry back into their foxholes
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Jeffrey Goldfarb | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

NEW YORK, March 23 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Jonathan Kanter, a lawyer by training, has become something of a magician. Pay closer attention, however, and Kanter is methodically rewriting a decades-old regulatory playbook. Last year, these breakup charges reached their highest level in a decade, at an average 4.5% of deal prices. The Department of Agriculture partnered with the DOJ on the case, another feature of Kanter’s plan of attack. As legal weaknesses emerge, dealmakers should be in position to better structure transactions and defend themselves at trial.

☆ New Starbucks CEO plans to pull barista shifts in stores every month
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Danielle Wiener-Bronner | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

New York CNN —Starbucks’ new CEO Laxman Narasimhan teased his plan for the company in a letter to employees. It includes working in Starbucks stores as a barista once a month. “Critically, we will reinvigorate our culture around what it means to be a partner at Starbucks,” Narasimhan continued. Starbucks employees react and cheer at the sound of honking motorists supporting them in a nationwide strike at the Starbucks at 1601 W. Irving Park Road on Dec. 16, 2022, in Chicago. Schultz, who remains on Starbuck’s board, is scheduled to testify about Starbucks’ labor practices during a Senate hearing next week.

☆ Starbucks shareholders to vote on proposals for labor probe, succession planning
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Amelia Lucas | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Shareholder votes aren't binding, so the board can reject proposals even if a majority of investors vote in favor. More than 190 company-owned Starbucks locations have voted to unionize under Starbucks Workers United, according to National Labor Relations Board data as of Friday. Members of a recently formed union of Starbucks workers hold a rally to celebrate the first anniversary of their founding, December 9, 2022 in New York City. Apple, unlike Starbucks, agreed to perform the assessment without waiting for a shareholder vote. But Trillium has more than two decades of experience putting shareholder proposals before Starbucks' board.

☆ Starbucks CEO says he'll work a shift at the company's cafes once a month
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Amelia Lucas | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan told employees Thursday that he'll work a half day every month at one of the coffee giant's locations. Narasimhan took the helm on Monday and will lead the company's shareholder meeting Thursday. His pledge comes at a rocky time for the company's relationship with its baristas. As of Friday, more than 190 company-owned Starbucks locations have voted to unionize, according to National Labor Relations Board data. Before joining Starbucks, Narasimhan was chief executive of Reckitt, which owns brands like Lysol and Durex.

☆ House Republicans subpoena labor authorities in Starbucks union dispute
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

March 22 (Reuters) - The House Education and Labor Committee on Wednesday issued a subpoena to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging officials of the labor body failed to conduct fair and impartial union elections at Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O). She has requested a regional NLRB official to provide documents to see if the federal labor board mishandled Starbucks Union elections. The NLRB was investigating a substantial number of additional allegations against Starbucks and working with the Congress, the spokesperson added. Starbucks did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment, while Starbucks Workers United declined to comment. Employees at more than 280 of Starbucks' roughly 9,000 company-operated U.S. locations have voted to join a labor union since 2021 seeking better pay and benefits, improved health and safety conditions and protection against unfair dismissal.

☆ House Republicans subpoena labor authorities in Starbucks union dispute - WSJ
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

The report added the House Committee on Education and the Workforce asked a regional NLRB official to provide documents as to whether the labor body improperly influenced at least one Starbucks election. The top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, Virginia Foxx, wrote that she believes the NLRB has communications and documents outlining alleged misconduct in Starbucks elections, the report said. Foxx is seeking documents on the matter and has requested that the NLRB official provide the documents to the committee on March 29, the Journal reported, citing the subpoena. Starbucks, NLRB, the Starbucks Workers United and GOP did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Starbucks workers have also filed more than 500 charges against the company with the NLRB, which has ordered the company to reinstate 22 fired employees including some union supporters.

☆ Starbucks' new CEO will start life at the coffee giant with a pay packet that could be worth over $28 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Laxman Narasimhan just started as CEO of Starbucks, and he's set to take home a hefty paycheck. This includes annual equity awards with a target value of $13.6 million, SEC filings show. According to Securities and Exchange Commission filings from September, Narasimhan will start with a base salary of $1.3 million per year. Starbucks says he'll also be eligible for annual equity awards with a target value of $13.6 million. When Kevin Johnson resigned as Starbucks CEO in April 2022, former boss Howard Schultz was named as his interim replacement.

March 22 (Reuters) - A recent U.S. labor board ruling limiting what employers can include in severance agreements is a reminder that companies must be careful not to ask workers to sign away their rights, the agency's top prosecutor said on Wednesday. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo in a memo to agency staff said the February decision prohibits agreements that restrict workers' ability to file lawsuits or communicate with the board, unions and the media. The decision also applies retroactively, Abruzzo said, meaning agreements offered to workers before the NLRB decided last month's case could still be deemed illegal. In the new ruling, the board found a Michigan hospital operator broke the law by offering workers severance agreements that included confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions, because they could discourage workers from filing complaints with the NLRB or publicizing labor disputes. Companies routinely ask laid-off workers to sign agreements in exchange for severance pay that limit their ability to file employment-related lawsuits and bar them from disparaging their former employers.

☆ YouTube Music contractors say their office is promoting anti-union messages on TVs ahead of the union election
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Contracting firm Cognizant is pushing back as contractors for YouTube Music begin union elections. In October, YouTube Music contractors announced their plans to unionize with the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), which represents more than 1,200 full-time Googlers and contractors doing work for the company through outsourcing firms. The YouTube Music contractors will hold a union election on Wednesday. Sam ReganCognizant required YouTube Music contractors to work from its Austin office starting February 6. YouTube Music contractors are voting to unionizeAfter the union election on Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board will hold a vote count on April 26 to determine whether a majority of YouTube Music workers voted in favor of collective bargaining.

☆ Meet Laxman Narasimhan, a coffee industry outsider who just took over as CEO of Starbucks
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Avery Hartmans | Nancy Luna | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Laxman Narasimhan officially took over as Starbucks CEO, replacing Howard Schultz. Narasimhan is new to the coffee industry, having started his career in the consulting world before joining PepsiCo, and, later, British consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser. Narasimhan built his career in the beverage and consumer-goods industriesLaxman Narasimhan at Starbucks Investor Day in September 2022. Starbucks said at the time that Narasimhan would begin as CEO on April 1, taking over for interim CEO Schultz. Of the 365 Starbucks stores that have held votes to unionize, 292 have voted to form a union.

The tool and die workers in a 62-9 vote rejected a campaign by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), according to results announced by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board. The 75 technicians would have been the first group to unionize at the Japanese automaker's largest assembly plant in North America. Nissan spokesperson Lloryn Love-Carter said, "Nissan respects this decision, and we remain focused on working with employees to drive our future forward together." “The IAM will continue to support these workers so we will be prepared for them to join our union when the time is right again," the union said. In 1989 and 2001, workers in Smyrna voted overwhelmingly against joining the United Auto Workers union.

Schultz will testify on March 29 before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the company and panel chairman Senator Bernie Sanders said on Tuesday. Schultz, who is stepping down from his post this month, had earlier declined an invitation from 11 senators to testify before the panel on March 9. The company previously rebuffed requests by Sanders for him to appear, instead offering for other executives to testify. "I look forward to hearing from him as to when he intends to end his illegal anti-union activities and begin signing fair first contracts with the unions," Sanders wrote on Twitter. Employees at more than 280 out of its roughly 9,000 company-operated U.S. locations have voted to join a labor union since 2021.

☆ Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz agrees to testify at Senate hearing after subpoena threat
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Amelia Lucas | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has agreed to testify in a U.S. Senate hearing about the coffee chain's alleged union busting after pressure from Sen. Bernie Sanders. The Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP, Committee was scheduled to vote Wednesday morning on whether to subpoena Schultz, who previously declined a request to appear. Schultz is now scheduled to appear at a March 29 hearing. More than a year after Starbucks Workers United won its first election, none of the cafes have agreed to a contract with Starbucks yet. Starbucks has lodged more than 100 of its own complaints against the union, alleging intimidation and harassment.

☆ Bernie Sanders successfully cajoled Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz into testifying before a Senate committee on labor practices
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Interim Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has agreed to testify in front of Sen. Bernie Sanders' committee. Sanders chairs the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP), and wanted to subpoena Schultz to testify. Now, Schultz has agreed to testify on March 29 about the firm's alleged anti-union activities. Ahead of that vote — which was scheduled for Wednesday — Sanders said that Schultz has "finally agreed to testify." Sanders also thanked the members of his committee, "who, in a bi-partisan way, were prepared" to vote to subpoena Schultz.

March 1 (Reuters) - "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard Inc (ATVI.O) has been accused by a union of illegally firing two video game testers for using "strong language" in a protest at a new company policy that limits remote work. The case is the latest the union has brought to the labor board as part of a campaign to unionize the firm and its subsidiaries. Small groups of game testers at three Activision subsidiaries voted to join the CWA last year. The change received an overwhelmingly negative response from employees, the CWA said, and Activision fired two game testers who "expressed their outrage using strong language." "When faced with unfair treatment by unscrupulous employers like Activision, workers should have the right to express themselves," CWA Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens said in a statement.

☆ Bernie Sanders is holding a vote to subpoena Howard Schultz for fighting Starbucks unionization
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Nicole Gaudiano | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Sen. Bernie Sanders announced he's holding a vote on issuing a subpoena for Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. The Senate HELP chairman wants Schultz to testify on his company's fight against unionization. Sanders, the new chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, also wants the committee to authorize an investigation into major corporations' labor law violations. Schultz rejoined Starbucks as interim CEO in April 2022 and will transition out of the role this month, the company wrote to Sanders in February. "A multi-billion dollar corporation like Starbucks cannot continue to break federal labor law with impunity," Sanders said.

March 1 (Reuters) - "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard Inc (ATVI.O) has been accused by a union of illegally firing two video game testers for using "strong language" in a protest of a new company policy that limits remote work. The case is the latest the union has brought to the labor board as part of a campaign to unionize the firm and its subsidiaries. Small groups of game testers at three Activision subsidiaries voted to join the CWA last year. The change received an overwhelmingly negative response from employees, the CWA said, and Activision fired two game testers who "expressed their outrage using strong language." "When faced with unfair treatment by unscrupulous employers like Activision, workers should have the right to express themselves," CWA Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens said in a statement.

☆ Starbucks displayed ‘egregious and widespread misconduct’ in union fight, judge says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Danielle Wiener-Bronner | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —Starbucks has displayed “egregious and widespread misconduct” in its dealings with employees involved in efforts to unionize Buffalo, New York, stores, a National Labor Relations Board judge said in an order Wednesday. Starbucks workers attend a rally as they go on a one-day strike outside a store in Buffalo, New York, November 17, 2022. “I don’t think a union has a place in Starbucks,” Schultz recently told CNN’s Poppy Harlow. But we as a company have a right also to say, we have a different vision that is better,” he said. “This is truly a historic ruling,” Gary Bonadonna Jr., manager of the Rochester Regional Joint Board of Workers United, SEIU, said in a statement issued by Starbucks Workers United.

☆ Sen. Bernie Sanders calls vote on subpoena for Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Amelia Lucas | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Sen. Bernie Sanders is making good on his threat of a subpoena for Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz on what Sanders has called union-busting activity at the company's coffee shops. Sanders said Wednesday that the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will vote March 8 on whether to issue a subpoena for Schultz, who previously declined to appear in front of the committee. Sanders said in a statement that Schultz has denied meeting and document requests and refused to answer questions from him and his fellow senators. "Unfortunately, Mr. Schultz has given us no choice, but to subpoena him," Sanders said in a statement. In response, Sanders, who chairs the Senate committee, hinted that lawmakers could compel Schultz to appear by issuing a subpoena.

☆ Starbucks corporate employees sign petition to reverse return to office mandate and stop alleged union busting
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Aaron Mcdade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Dozens of Starbucks employees signed a letter Wednesday pushing back against return to office policies. The corporate staffers are calling to overturn a mandate to come in at least three days per week. Months after Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said he was pleading with employees to return to the office, the executive ultimately announced a policy in January requiring employees "within commuting distance" to return to the office at least three days per week. The return to office policy and alleged union busting is "fracturing trust in Starbucks leadership," the letter states. The letter makes official requests for the company to reverse the return to office policy and "commit to a policy of neutrality and respect federal labor laws."

[1/3] Starbucks workers attend a rally as they go on a one-day strike outside a store in Buffalo, New York, U.S., November 17, 2022. Employees at more than 280 out of its roughly 9,000 company operated U.S. locations have voted to join a labor union since 2021. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has accused Starbucks of unlawful anti-union tactics at stores across the country, including allegedly firing pro-union workers. ISS concluded that "there seem to be credible reasons that may lend support to various accusations" raised by Workers United, the NLRB and Starbucks. Starbucks also said it "commenced efforts to conduct a human rights impact assessment" including labor rights, and that it expects to make the results available to shareholders.

☆ Here are answers to 5 key questions about the labor board’s severance agreement rule change
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-26 | by ( Jeanne Sahadi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Can my employer no longer ever require that I stay quiet in exchange for severance? Normally there is a six-month window akin to a statute of limitations to bring an alleged violation to the board’s attention. So can employers now never require me to stay mum about the company as a condition of receiving severance? It’s easy to forget, but there is no legal requirement for employers to offer laid off workers severance. “There’s a real risk to employees that the case will have a negative impact on the size of severance packages going forward,” he said.

☆ Elon Musk faces upwards of $130 million in legal costs to fight laid off Twitter workers over severance pay
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Elon Musk last month offered thousands of laid off Twitter workers a limited severance deal. The former workers, laid off in November, say they were promised much better severance than what Musk finally offered them last month. In addition, laid off Twitter employees also filed a handful of class action lawsuits in federal court. It also effectively prohibits them from ever speaking about Musk, Twitter, or their experience at the company. Even those relatively few Twitter workers who signed off on Musk's severance agreement could speak freely about the company going forward.

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