Starbucks has displayed “egregious and widespread misconduct” in its dealings with employees involved in efforts to unionize Buffalo, New York, stores, a National Labor Relations Board judge said in an order Wednesday.As a result, the company must reinstate and make whole a number of workers who were let go from locations in or around Buffalo, among other remedies, NLRB administrative law judge Michael Rosas said.The case includes 32 unfair labor charges made by Workers United against the company for its actions between August 2021 and July 2022 at 21 stores in the Buffalo area, including the first Starbucks location to unionize.The company, which has been facing a wave of unionization across the country since December 2021, must also post a notice in its stores nationally, the judge ruled. That notice informs workers that they have the right to join a union, and lays out a lengthy list of what the company will refrain from doing, like surveilling workers or making other efforts to dissuade union activity.Rosas also said that interim CEO Howard Schultz and another company leader must read the notice to employees, or be present at a meeting where the rights are read.Schultz, who will soon hand over the reins to incoming CEO Laxman Narasimhan, has been a vocal opponent of the union since he rejoined the company as interim CEO last year.“I don’t think a union has a place in Starbucks,” Schultz recently told CNN’s Poppy Harlow. If workers “file for a petition to be unionized, they have a right to do so. But we as a company have a right also to say, we have a different vision that is better,” he said.Schultz recently declined a request from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and the rest of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to testify in an upcoming hearing on Starbucks’ compliance with labor laws. Starbucks said its chief public affairs officer AJ Jones II will attend instead.For union leaders, Wednesday’s order was a win.“This is truly a historic ruling,” Gary Bonadonna Jr., manager of the Rochester Regional Joint Board of Workers United, SEIU, said in a statement issued by Starbucks Workers United. “We will not rest until every Starbucks worker wins the right to organize.”Michelle Eisen, a worker who was among those that Starbucks must make whole according to Wednesday’s order, said “this decision results from months of tireless organizing by workers in cafes across the country demanding better working conditions in the face of historical, monumental, and now deemed illegal union-busting.”Both parties have until March 28 to appeal the decision, according to the NLRB.Starbucks said in a statement that it is “considering all options to obtain further legal review,” adding that “we believe the decision and the remedies ordered are inappropriate given the record in this matter.”

More New York state Starbucks locations are now set to vote to decide if workers there want to unionize. Many see the effort as having the ability to possibly pick up steam in other parts of the country.

As Bloomberg reported, Nancy Wilson, an acting regional director of the National Labor Relations Board ordered ballots be sent out to Starbucks employees by Jan. 31, and be returned by Feb. 22. Employees at the three additional stores will vote to decide if they would like to join Workers United which is affiliated with Service Employees International Union which won elections recently at two other Starbucks sites in Buffalo.

So far, only two out of 9,000 of Starbuck's corporate-run locations are unionized, which comprises over 230,000 employees, the New York Times reported.

Reggie Borges, a spokesperson for Starbucks was quoted in the Times using a little different language, saying that the company was not anti-union, but instead was “pro-partner,” with its employees. Borges says that the company has historically listened to its workers' feedback and made changes that make unionizing unnecessary.

In early January, unionized Starbucks employees in upstate New York staged a walkout citing fears over COVID-19 safety amid a surge of virus cases. As the Associated Press reported, six of those employees formed a picket line outside of one of the stores in Buffalo causing it to decide to close for the day, after around a third of the staff did not report to work because of safety fears.

Borges said that Starbucks had met and exceeded CDC and expert guidelines and offered vaccine and isolation pay to employees.

“Over and above that, all leaders are empowered to make whatever changes make sense for their neighborhood, which includes shortening store hours or moving to 100% takeout only, which is the case in Buffalo,” Borges said.

Starbucks workers at various cities across the U.S., in cities including Knoxville, Tenn., Tallahassee, Fla., Seattle, Chicago, Boston and Denver, have reportedly been seeking to follow the model of Buffalo in seeking to vote to organize unions, according to the New York Times.

In a 2006 statement on Starbucks' corporate website, the company addresses its long-held perspective on unionizing writing, "While Starbucks respects the free choice of our partners, we firmly believe that our work environment, coupled with our outstanding compensation and benefits, make unions unnecessary at Starbucks. We respect our partners’ right to organize, but believe that they would not find it necessary given our pro-partner environment." 

John Logan, a labor studies professor at San Francisco State University told the New York Times that unionizing has traditionally been effective when aimed at companies with a small number of large workplaces, as striking at one of less than 20 large factories can cause a disruption. But, striking at one or a few out of 9,000 Starbucks stores across the country would likely make little to no difference to the profits of a company as massive as Starbucks.