Wilkins Starbucks workers seek to decertify union representation

Some workers at the Penn Center East Starbucks in Wilkins Township are petitioning the National Labor Relations Board to hold a vote to decertify the union representing employees at the coffee shop.

Penn Center East joined Starbucks Workers United last year.

The employee who submitted the petition, Elizabeth Gulliford, is receiving free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The Springfield, Va.-based nonprofit, established in 1968, says its mission is to eliminate “coercive union power and compulsory unionism abuses through strategic litigation, public information, and education programs.”

Enough Penn Center East workers have signed the petition to trigger a vote under the federal agency’s rules, according to the National Right to Work foundation. At least 30 percent of the union membership must sign such a petition to trigger a vote.

A message left with Starbucks Workers United was not immediately returned.

The move comes on the heels of a June 30 ruling by NLRB administrative law judge Robert Ringler, which found that Starbucks management had illegally fired four baristas at Pittsburgh-area locations who supported unionization. The NRLB ordered the reinstatement of those workers at Craig Street in Oakland, Market Square, Penn Center East and Bloomfield.

The Right to Work foundation is also representing workers at Starbucks locations in Manhattan, N.Y., and Buffalo, N.Y., to try to obtain union decertification votes.

About 335 stores nationwide are unionized.