Meatpacking District Starbucks Worker Files Petition To Dissolve Union

MEATPACKING DISTRICT, NY — A year after the flagship Reserve Roastery Starbucks in the Meatpacking District became the first unionized location of the coffee conglomerate in the city, one worker has filed a petition to dissolve the union.

That petition, according to the union, is just part of the same union busting effort that has recently landed the $121 billion coffee company in hot water.

According to an announcement from an anti-union organization, National Right to Work, an employee at the store named Kevin Caesar has filed a petition to dissolve the union.

"After being unionized for just over one year, the workers have had enough of the union and believe they would be better off without it," the announcement read.

The group was unable to say how many other workers were in support of Caesar's petition, but they did say that Caesar was receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

The NRWLDF is the same group behind numerous Supreme Court cases seeking to roll back union protections across the country, including 2018's landmark Janus v. AFSCME.

According to past reporting, the group has deep connections with the far-right rabidly anti-communist John Birch Society and the Koch brothers. In 2012, the Koch's funneled over $1 million to the organization, reported PR Watch.

Representatives from Starbucks Workers United told Patch that the group, which they called a "Koch brothers-funded right-wing anti-union organization," had tried the same "concerted union-busting effort on the part of Starbucks" in two upstate stores, in Rochester and at the original unionized Buffalo store.

"We expect the decertification petition to be dismissed and workers at the Roastery are committed to continue organizing and fighting for a fair first contract," the union said in a statement.

Last year, workers at the Roastery voted to unionize to improve conditions at the store, including getting rid of bed bugs and imposing regular deep cleans of the ice machines to prevent mold growth, the union said.

Since the first Starbucks store won a union vote in Buffallo, NY in late 2021, over 300 stores across the have won union elections.

In March, a National Labor Relations Board judge said that Starbucks displayed "egregious and widespread misconduct" in their anti-union efforts. Several other federal judges have ruled in Buffallo and Memphis, Tennessee, that Starbucks has illegally fired workers for union activity.