Starbucks barista Nadia Kuban has asked the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Washington, DC, to reconsider federal policies that she says are preventing her and her colleagues from voting on whether to remove Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) union officials from their workplace. Kuban is represented by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
The NLRB oversees federal labor law, including elections to certify or decertify unions. In February, Kuban submitted a petition with enough signatures from employees at the Niskayuna Starbucks location to request a decertification vote under current NLRB rules. However, regional NLRB officials dismissed her petition and did not allow a vote.
Kuban’s latest filing challenges this dismissal. According to her legal brief, regional NLRB officials rejected the petition because of unfair labor practice charges filed by SBWU against Starbucks at the national level. Her Request for Review argues that dismissing the petition without a hearing violated employees’ due process rights and questions whether these allegations were relevant to workers’ desire to remove the union at her store. The brief also criticizes the NLRB’s Rieth-Riley precedent, which allows union leaders to use “blocking charges” as grounds for stopping decertification votes before those charges are litigated.