![Kenneth Walker was fired for organizing fellow employees at the University Circle Starbucks, according to an administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board. The decision says that the company must reinstate him and give him back pay and benefits with interest. This animated illustration shows Organize! The](https://i0.wp.com/signalcleveland.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/StarbucksOrganize.gif?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1)
Starbucks must reinstate the employee it illegally fired at its University Circle store for helping to organize a union, a National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge has ordered.
The decision requires Starbucks to reinstate Kenneth Walker to his former job at the store on Euclid Avenue or offer him an equivalent position with “seniority or other rights or privileges previously enjoyed.” The company fired him in early July 2022, saying that he had failed to adequately perform his duties. Christal J. Key, the administrative law judge, found otherwise in her May 8 decision. Workers at the store voted in a union a few weeks after Walker was terminated.
Walker approves of the decision that orders Starbucks to give him roughly two years in back pay and benefits with interest.
Kenneth Walker, who won a decision that said he was fired for organizing
“I’m feeling happy,” Walker said. “I was reading through some of the things that she [Key] said, and I like that she found my testimony credible.”
Starbucks Workers United, part of the Workers United union, filed charges against the company with the NLRB on Walker’s behalf. The union has filed hundreds of charges nationally on behalf of workers they say have been fired for organizing. Starbucks Workers United has unionized more than 400 stores nationally, according to the NLRB. The University Circle store is among eight in Cuyahoga County that are now unionized.
Walker’s case was tried last year. The decision reveals how Starbucks’ managers labeled Walker a “troublemaker” because of his organizing activities and then tried to depict him as a poor worker. For example, his firing was partly based on a manager saying that the store ran out of cups and lids because Walker had failed to use the inventory management system to order them. Walker was able to show that he had used the system, but that it hadn’t indicated that the store needed cups or lids.
Starbucks is reviewing Key’s decision, according to a company spokesperson.
“Our focus continues to be on training and supporting our managers to ensure respect of our partners’ [employees’] rights to organize and on progressing negotiations towards ratified store contracts this year,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to Signal Cleveland.
Starbucks workers unionizing in Cleveland and nationwide
Greater Cleveland is part of a national effort to unionize Starbucks stores. So far, about 400 have been unionized. Starbucks hasn’t yet reached a contract with any of the Cleveland workers or those nationally. Last year, unionized workers here and throughout the United States accused Starbucks of failing to bargain in good faith. This year, in Cleveland and other cities, many workers have said Starbucks has become more serious about bargaining.
Walker hasn’t decided whether to return to his old job but said he is leaning in that direction. He joined Starbucks in 2019 and remained with the company until he was terminated. Walker misses many of his co-workers, whom he described as “really good and passionate” about their work.
“I’m definitely interested in going back to a Starbucks that is bargaining in good faith with the union, which they [Starbucks] seem like they’re eventually coming to. I want to work for a company that is more equitable.”
Akshai Singh, one of Walker’s former colleagues at the University Circle store, is on the bargaining committee there. He said the company appears serious about bargaining in good faith. Singh said there have been other welcome changes. For example, the company has restored credit card tipping, which hadn’t been allowed at unionized stores. Signal Cleveland wrote about the organizing efforts of Walker, Singh and other Starbucks workers in Inside Cleveland retail workers’ unionizing fight.
Singh said Walker’s win is significant.
“It’s a huge vindication,” he said. “Ken was actually performing his job but became the target of this type of malicious behavior.”
The order also requires Starbucks to compensate Walker for any financial “harms incurred as a result of its unlawful conduct, including reasonable search-for-work and interim employment expenses” plus interest. Starbucks must compensate Walker for any “adverse tax consequences” he would incur by receiving a lump-sum payment. Documents and mention of the firing must be removed from his personnel record.
Walker said the past two years have been trying. He could no longer afford the rent for his apartment not far from his old University Circle job and ended up moving to a cheaper place on the West Side. One job he found after being fired didn’t work out. It was in an East Side suburb. He didn’t have a car, which made getting there difficult from Cleveland’s West Side.
“I’ve definitely had moments in the past couple years where I’ve just been like, ‘If I’d never done this, I’d be in a better place financially,’” Walker said. “But it was definitely worth it to help achieve this: Unions are spreading across Ohio and across the country.”
Economics Reporter (she/her)
Economics is often thought of as a lofty topic, but it shouldn’t be. My goal is to offer a street-level view of economics. My focus is on how the economy affects the lives of Greater Clevelanders. My areas of coverage include jobs, housing, entrepreneurship, unions, wealth inequality and pocketbook issues such as inflation.