But if the union wins some elections, “everything can be done,” Prizbirski said.
In some cases, the corporate backlash has clearly intensified while the trade union movement has slowed. Starbucks had less than 10 union election filings in August, down from about 70 five months ago, and has not filed union elections at Apple stores since November.
Starbucks illegally fired seven Buffalo-area employees last year, not long after unions won two elections in the Buffalo area, according to a federal administrative judge’s ruling.
A Trader Joe’s store in Louisville, Kentucky, the company’s third to unionize, fired two workers who supported the union movement, according to worker Connor Hovey, who was involved in the union. Several were formally reprimanded. According to documents shared by Hovey, the company cites a range of issues, including dress code violations, late arrivals and excessively long breaks.
And ahead of the recent union elections at REI, near Cleveland, management tried to exclude certain categories of workers from the ballot. According to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Association. The chain, a co-op chain that sells recreational equipment, said there had been no such protests in the last two elections in which workers voted to form a union. (The union announced that the company had withdrawn following the departure of employees at its Cleveland-area store, and the store voted to form a union March. )
United Food and Commercial Workers spokesman Jess Raimund, who is also calling for REI stores to unionize, said the cooperative has formally reprimanded one Durham, N.C. He said he put one on leave and later fired him for his conduct at work.took place after workers filed for union elections last month.
