The unusual ruling will let Starbucks peek into communications that courts usually view as private and protected.
The giant coffee chain asked to subpoena the records as part of discovery in a bitter legal fight with the employees and the National Labor Relations Board, whose regional director in MayThe board asked the court in June to reinstate seven Starbucks workers who were allegedly fired for union-organizing activities through a group called Starbucks Workers United.
, the New York Times, Vice, Fox News, Al Jazeera, the Guardian and the Buffalo News have reported extensively on the organizing campaign.Buffalo has been ground zero in a push to unionize employees of the sprawling chain, which has more than 15,000 locations in the United States. Workers at a Buffalo store were the first to petition for union recognition last year, sparking a movement that has spread to more than 6,000 workers at some 200 Starbucks across the country.
He didn’t specify what misinformation had allegedly been communicated. But in a follow-up email, another Starbucks representative said asking parties involved in litigation to share material communications “is standard practice.” “I keep rereading [the judge’s order] and saying, ‘This can’t be right,’” said Cathy Creighton, the director of Cornell University’s school of industrial and labor relations lab in Buffalo and a former labor-union attorney.