Starbucks is requesting a suspension of mail-in ballots at unionization votes currently going on at its stores across America. The coffee chain is accusing National Labor Relation Board employees in Kansas and elsewhere of misconduct in handling these mail-in votes, actions it said has skewed results in favor of unionization.

The NLRB workers in question "engaged in highly improper, systemic misconduct involving Starbucks and Workers United," the company's general counsel wrote in a letter to the NLRB. Starbucks said an NLRB whistle-blower alerted the company to the alleged misconduct.

Starbucks has been attempting to fend off a growing unionization movement for several months now. As of Friday, the NLRB has certified votes to unionize at 199 Starbucks stores, and votes against unionizing at 36. So far, there have been election petitions at 314 stores overall.

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Starbucks charges that NLRB employees allowed some pro-union workers to vote in person, although it had been decided that ballots would be submitted via mail. Some workers missed the deadline to vote by mail but weren't offered the option to vote in person, Starbucks alleged, encouraging a pro-union result.

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The coffee chain also alleged that the NLRB workers gave the union information like when and how many ballots it received in the mail.

Starbucks is requesting a suspension of mail-in ballots at unionization votes currently going on at its stores across America. The coffee chain is accusing National Labor Relation Board employees in Kansas and elsewhere of misconduct in handling these mail-in votes, actions it said has skewed results in favor of unionization.

The NLRB workers in question "engaged in highly improper, systemic misconduct involving Starbucks and Workers United," the company's general counsel wrote in a letter to the NLRB. Starbucks said an NLRB whistle-blower alerted the company to the alleged misconduct.

Starbucks has been attempting to fend off a growing unionization movement for several months now. As of Friday, the NLRB has certified votes to unionize at 199 Starbucks stores, and votes against unionizing at 36. So far, there have been election petitions at 314 stores overall.

*

Starbucks charges that NLRB employees allowed some pro-union workers to vote in person, although it had been decided that ballots would be submitted via mail. Some workers missed the deadline to vote by mail but weren't offered the option to vote in person, Starbucks alleged, encouraging a pro-union result.

*

The coffee chain also alleged that the NLRB workers gave the union information like when and how many ballots it received in the mail.