Starbucks employees in OP fired before union vote count accuse company of retaliation
Two former employees at an Overland Park Starbucks who were fired days before the store voted to unionize are accusing the company of unfair labor practices.
Alydia Claypool, 24, and Michael Vestigo, 24, allege the company fired them in retaliation for helping push forward the vote to unionize.
Claypool was fired March 28 and Vestigo three days later.
The store’s vote count took place Friday with seven of the 14 employees voting 6-1 in favor of unionizing. Starbucks lawyers claim that the remaining seven votes should be ineligible since they are no longer with the company or there was an alleged issue with their ballot. The Overland Park location joins about 16 others across the country that have held elections and voted to unionize.
Both Claypool and Vestigo cast ballots supporting the formation of a union in the weeks before the election and discovered on Friday when the votes were read aloud that their ballots were two of the seven being challenged.
Earlier this week, the pair filed confidential affidavits with the National Labor Relations Board accusing Starbucks of unfair labor practices.
“Other members of our store had previously filed for different things, but none as intense as being terminated,” Claypool said.
At least 21 stores have filed charges of unfair labor practices with the union group Starbucks Workers United over alleged mistreatment, including the firing of employees ahead of their elections in Memphis and Scottsdale, Arizona.
Claypool hopes to be reinstated at another store location, since she was relying on the Starbucks’ College Achievement Plan, a partnership that pays tuition at Arizona State University, to fund the fall semester.
“I got an email asking me to start enrolling in classes and it’s devastating,” she said.
A date to continue the Overland Park location’s election and certify the results with the National Labor Relations Board, which is the next step in forming the union, has not been set.
A Starbucks spokeswoman said Wednesday that any accusations of anti-union activity are categorically false.
‘A rock and a hard place’
Claypool started working for Starbucks in May 2017 after hearing about the company’s partnership with Arizona State University.
She said the online school had a great education program and she had always wanted to be a teacher.
In recent months, Claypool noticed workers’ hours being cut and said boxes blocking exits due to a lack of storage space presented a danger.
On March 19, she went on strike alongside her co-workers to bring attention to the working conditions, she said.
Claypool came to work the next day with a sunburn and discovered she had a temperature of 100 degrees, about 0.4 degrees over what was allowed to work. But she said Starbucks policy required that two people work in the store at all times.
“I knew I can’t work in the store with a fever and I can’t leave the barista by herself,” she said. “It left me between a rock and a hard place.”
Her manager did not respond to her, she claimed, or allow her to leave for over an hour.
“I left the store and it wasn’t brought up again until March 28,” she said.
That day, the store’s district manager gave Claypool a notice of separation for working with a fever.
She filed an appeal April 1 through a Starbucks Workers United attorney and is hoping to be reinstated at another store, but has yet to receive a response.
Claypool said she had already cast a ballot in favor of unionizing by the April 8 election and encouraged others to do the same, which she alleged was the real reason for her firing.
She attended the union election to hear the votes counted after being forced to leave the company.
The email asking her to officially enroll in classes at Arizona State University is sitting in her inbox unopened, she added.
“I still haven’t reached out to them yet and explained the situation ... That conversation is going to be sad for me,” she said.
“The flexibility of that school was really appealing to me, and I don’t think I’m going to find anything else on that level and be able to afford it ... That’s definitely hit me the hardest.”
‘It’s ludicrous’
Vestigo joined the company in 2019 and said he also attended the March 19 strike.
But April 1 when he came to work at 1 p.m., he was given a notice of separation.
“They told me I had behaved in a violent or threatening way toward our district manager, but would not tell me when they saw this happen,” he said.
Vestigo said that he rarely saw the manager in the store and could not remember speaking with her.
On the notice, he said, the manager alleged he had threatened to punch her in the mouth.
“I was shocked and I asked them to show me proof and they just couldn’t,” he said.
“It’s ludicrous.”
They told Vestigo to collect his belongings, sign the notice and leave the store, he said.
Vestigo refused to sign thre documented and contacted a lawyer with Starbucks Workers United.
He alleges his firing was part of an effort to retaliate against those speaking to other employees about voting to unionize.
He is also hoping to be reinstated at another location since he has not found another job.
