Posts tagged profanity
Starbucks defends union organizer’s firing before Fifth Circuit
February 3, 2026 // The NLRB found that Starbucks illegally fired James Schenk, a shift supervisor at a Starbucks store in the Albany, New York, area who in 2021 and 2022 helped lead a campaign to unionize the store. Starbucks fired Schenk in August 2022 after he opened a letter from the NLRB addressed to the store. But the board found that his termination, as well as previous disciplinary actions for sending profane messages in an employee Snapchat group and failing to complete four assigned tasks by the end of a shift, were retaliation for his union activism.
Pro-Union Shift Expected With Labor Board Member’s Pending Exit
August 21, 2023 // Abruzzo has asked the board to resurrect the Joy Silk doctrine—which would allow unions to bypass an official NLRB election with a card-check vote instead—and overturn the 1940’s Babcock & Wilcox ruling to make captive audience meetings unlawful. In another pending case, the board also may decide the fate of the 1970 Ex-Cell-O precedent, which prohibits the NLRB from forcing companies or unions to accept provisions of a collective bargaining agreement. Overturning that decision would allow the board to levy financial remedies against companies to compensate workers for what they could’ve earned with good-faith contract negotiations. The NLRB’s August agenda also includes finalizing regulations to expand the factors that can trigger a joint-employer finding. The rule, proposed nearly a year ago, would eliminate the stricter joint employment standard established by the Trump-era board. Other pending cases could boost the potency of worker strikes, expand the scope of labor law protections, and make other changes that bolster worker and union power.