According to Reuters, Starbucks has been sued on Monday by eight unionised workers in a South Carolina store after they were reportedly wrongly accused of criminal conduct. This after they demanded a raise from their manager.
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Unspecified compensatory and punitive damages
The lawsuit was filed in the South Carolina state court against Starbucks and the store manager in Anderson, a few miles from Clemson University, Reuters reports.
Back in June, the workers of the Starbucks store had voted 18-0 in favour of unionising, and on August 1 they sent a letter to their store manager demanding a raise.
According to the workers, the store manager had thereafter reached out to a district manager and falsely reported that her coworkers were preventing her from leaving the store.
Two days later the store manager contacted the police and demanded that law enforcement charge the workers with assault and kidnapping.
As a result the local sheriff visited the homes of some of the workers, but according to the workers, ultimately it was concluded that they had done nothing illegal.
'Abusing Legal Process'
Bloomberg reports about the view of the workers who say that the company had spread falsehoods about them and have abused the legal process in response to a union protest.
It is not yet known what the specific requests of the workers are within the defamation case.
A spokesman for Starbucks, via a statement, has said that it was reviewing the lawsuit and denied any wrongdoing.
‘No Starbucks partner has been or will be disciplined for supporting or engaging in lawful union activity — but interest in a union does not exempt partners from following policies and procedures that apply to all partners,’
Over the past year, over 240 Starbucks stores have unionised in the US, while a dozen of locationshave been accused of illegal labor practices, Reuters reports.
Sources used:
-Reuters: ‘Starbucks sued for accusing unionized workers of assault, kidnapping’
-Bloomberg: ‘Starbucks Is Sued by Pro-Union Staff for Defamation, Abusing Legal Process’
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