WSJ: Starbucks Emails Describe Illegal Efforts to Stop Unionization

[Omaha Steve]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119992798501479685.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

By KRIS MAHER
January 9, 2008 9:21 p.m.

A series of emails by Starbucks Corp. managers sheds light on the company's efforts to thwart union organizing among its baristas.

The emails, which are part of a labor-dispute proceeding in New York and were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, open a rare window onto the company's labor relations practices. Labor experts not involved with the case said the activity is not illegal. But the emails could prove embarrassing because they show managers using various methods to identify pro-union employees.

The Industrial Workers of the World, or IWW, has been trying to organize workers at Starbucks since 2004 and has been able to organize only several dozen at a handful of stores in New York and a few other cities.

According to several emails, in early 2006, Starbucks managers discovered that two pro-union employees in New York were graduates of a Cornell University labor program. According to an email, managers took the names of graduates from an online Cornell discussion group and the school's Web site and cross-checked them with employee lists nationwide. They found that three employees in California, Michigan and Illinois were graduates of the program and recommended that local managers be informed.

The emails are exhibits in a pending case before an administrative law judge in New York. Brandon Borrman, a Starbucks spokesman, said most of the documents relate to issues that were already settled in a separate agreement with the National Labor Relations Board, in which the company didn't admit any wrongdoing. He said the claims in that case were baseless but declined to comment on specifics, and said disclosure of the documents violates a confidentiality order.

Referring to Starbucks employees as partners, he said: "We honor the free choices of partners, and we strictly comply with labor laws, including those for organizing activities. It is unfortunate that a small group of activists continues to misrepresent itself as speaking on behalf of more than 150,000 partners world-wide when it does not."

FULL story at link.