The National Labor Relations Board says the locations were closed because of union organizing, violating federal law.

There’s contrasting reporting on this:

Reuters:

The inquiry conducted from July to September called on Starbucks to improve the way it engages with unionization and revise its Global Human Rights Statement, but said there were no sign that it interfered with the freedom of employees to unionize.

“The assessment was direct and clear that while Starbucks has had no intention to deviate from the principles of freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, there are things the company can, and should, do to improve its stated commitments,” said Mellody Hobson, independent chair of Starbucks.

The Starbucks Workers United union, which represents more than 9,000 employees at about 360 U.S. stores, said the report “acknowledges deep problems” in the company’s response to unionization by workers.

“If the company’s efforts at dialogue over the last few days are sincere, we are ready to talk,” the union said.

NYT:

The matter is scheduled to go before an administrative judge next summer unless Starbucks settles it earlier. In addition to asking the judge to order the stores reopened, the complaint wants employees to be compensated for the loss of earnings or benefits and for other costs they incurred as a result of the closures.

“This complaint is the latest confirmation of Starbucks’ determination to illegally oppose workers’ organizing,” Mari Cosgrove, a Starbucks employee, said in a statement issued through a spokesperson for the union, Workers United.

The new complaint was issued on the same day that Starbucks released a nonconfidential version of an outside assessment of whether its practices align with its stated commitment to labor rights. The company’s shareholders had voted to back the assessment in a nonbinding vote whose results were announced in March.

The author of the report, Thomas M. Mackall, a former management-side lawyer and labor relations official at the food and facilities management company Sodexo, wrote that he “found no evidence of an ‘anti-union playbook’ or instructions or training about how to violate U.S. laws.”