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Starbucks Corporation
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BEFORE THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
STARBUCKS CORPORATION
Employer
and Case 14-RD-327273
AMY SMITH
Petitioner and
CHICAGO & MIDWEST REGIONAL JOINT BOARD, WORKERS UNITED/SEIU AKA
STARBUCKS WORKERS UNITED
Union
ORDER1
The Employer's and Petitioner's Requests for Review of the Regional Director's Order Denying Reinstatement of Petition are denied as they raise no substantial issues warranting review.2
1 The Employer asserts that Member Prouty should recuse himself, claiming that his "past, present and perceived relationships with the Service Employees International Union ("SEIU") International Union, SEIU Local Unions, and their affiliates, including Workers United" create a conflict of interest. Member Prouty has determined, in consultation with the NLRB Designated Agency Ethics Official, that there is no basis to recuse himself from the adjudication of this case.
2 In denying review, we observe that the Regional Director engaged in what we have termed a "merit-determination dismissal" by dismissing the petition, subject to reinstatement, because of a merit determination with respect to certain types of unfair labor practice charges. In Rieth-Riley Construction Co., Inc., 371 NLRB No. 109 (2022), the Board held that merit- determination dismissals remain available under Board law. For the reasons stated in her order, we find that the Regional Director's merit-determination dismissal was appropriate here. Chairman Murphy did not participate in Rieth-Riley and applies it here for institutional reasons, in the absence of a three-member majority willing to revisit that precedent. Member Prouty notes that, contrary to the Employer's and Petitioner's assertions, the Regional Director was not obligated to make a "causal nexus" finding before engaging in a merit-determination dismissal here because the Sec. 8(a)(5) refusal-to-bargain allegations in the complaint, if proven, may result in an affirmative bargaining order and/or extension of the certification year, a remedy the General Counsel has requested, which would, in turn, require the dismissal of the petition. See Starbucks Corp., 373 NLRB No. 74 (2024); BOC Group, 323 NLRB 1100, 1100 (1997); Big Three Industries, Inc., 201 NLRB 197, 197 (1973). He further notes that those outcomes would not depend on the existence of a causal nexus between the
1
DAVID M. PROUTY, MEMBER
JAMES R. MURPHY, MEMBER
Dated, Washington, D.C., April 21, 2026.
MEMBER MAYER, CONCURRING:
I agree with my colleagues that the Regional Director's order denying reinstatement of the petition is consistent with Rieth-Riley Construction Co., Inc., 371 NLRB No. 109 (2022) and its progeny, and I join the Chairman in applying it for institutional reasons here, in the absence of a three-member majority willing to revisit it. However, I have serious concerns about the way in which that precedent can deprive employees for years of any opportunity to exercise their right freely to select, reject, or change their bargaining representative. In Rieth-Riley, for example, a divided Board affirmed, on June 15, 2022, the dismissal of petitions filed in 2020. Those petitions remain dismissed to this day. Likewise, here, the petition was filed on October 4, 2023. It was dismissed on December 29, 2023, on the basis of unfair labor practice allegations in Cases 01-CA-305952 et al., which were settled on August 8, 2024. It remains dismissed, however, on the basis of allegations in complaint in Case 01-CA-307838 et al, which issued on January 9, 2024, and were restated in the Second Amended Consolidated Complaint in Cases 13-CA- 305908 et al., which issued on January 8, 2026. The hearing has yet to open in that massive case. The open-ended dismissals approved in Rieth-Riley have deprived employees in case after case of any opportunity to vote in a Board-conducted election for years. An assessment of whether Rieth-Riley struck the proper balance between "the statutory goal of promoting labor relations stability [and the Board's] statutory responsibility to give effect to employees' wishes concerning representation" is long overdue. Silvan Industries, a Division of SPVG, 367 NLRB No. 28, slip op. at 3 (2018).
SCOTT A. MAYER, MEMBER
unfair labor practices and the petition. See Starbucks Corporation, 372 NLRB No. 156, slip op. at fn. 2 (2023).
To the extent the Union's opposition asks us to revisit the Board's decision in Truserv Corp., 349 NLRB 227 (2007), we decline to do so.
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