All 22 workers whose votes were not challenged voted in favor of unionizing, according to a National Labor Relations Board tally Wednesday, but union organizers and Compass representatives challenged 101 votes, sending the matter to the National Labor Relations Board.
Despite that, the workers are “incredibly encouraged and pretty excited,” said union organizer and store manager Joseph Babin. “I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t expect it to be unanimous, especially since a lot of these no-vote votes were new employees. The fact that we were able to communicate well with them and get them all to vote yes is incredibly encouraging to me.”
The vote is being contested because Compass rushed the hiring in the weeks after workers announced plans to unionize on May 31. The move has drawn criticism from union activists and labor experts, who say Compass has used traditional union-busting tactics to dilute pro-union votes — a claim the company’s co-founder and CEO, Michael Haft, has firmly denied.
Kayla Brad, a spokeswoman for the independent federal agency, said in an email Wednesday that NLRB Regional Director Shawn Marshall will decide whether to count or open the challenged ballots. The director could also order a hearing to rule on the matter and determine which of the challenged ballots are votes of employees who are eligible to have a say in the union vote. Both sides can file objections within five days after the election, she added.
“Once the challenged votes and potential objections have been rejected, the results will be certified,” Blado said. Just holding a hearing on the agenda could take weeks.
On Tuesday, Compass closed its stores for the day or closed early to allow employees to vote. The company posted paper in the windows to protect employees’ privacy. Representatives from the NLRB were there to administer each election. Both the union and Compass sent representatives to the stores to challenge the vote.
Haft expressed frustration with the number of challenges filed by union representatives: “If there is a dispute, the parties should try to resolve it on the day of the vote. [the vote]”And typically people are able to resolve at least some of the disputed votes,” Haft said Tuesday. “They have refused to engage in any kind of rational debate.”
But Babin said Compass Coffee United followed NLRB guidelines in challenging the vote. “We are in full compliance with the law and I am concerned that Michael Haft seems to think the law doesn’t apply to all of our company. If his new hiring team qualifies according to the NLRB guidelines, there is no need to worry,” he said.
The NLRB did not disclose which representatives, Compass representatives or union representatives, challenged individual votes, but Haft said the union representatives “challenged all voters who were not on the organizing committee.”
Babin called Haft’s allegations “100 percent unfounded,” but did not say how many votes were challenged. Babin said one of the two voters who was not challenged at his location near the White House was a new employee and not a member of the organizing committee. Haft said Compass questioned the legitimacy of two employees at a Spring Valley cafe who were not supposed to be on the voter rolls.
Each challenged ballot was sealed in a separate envelope listing the reasons it was challenged.
By agreement of both sides, some votes are being contested based on whether those who voted are considered managers, which are employees who generally are not allowed to be union members. Babin said he is confident the NLRB will rule Compass’s managerial vote valid because the NLRB defines a manager as someone with the power to hire and fire, which Compass store managers, not managers, have.
The allegations against Compass come in the midst of an unprecedented unionization drive at coffee shops across the country. As workers began organizing at Starbucks stores, the coffee giant was accused of using tactics such as hiring more workers to dilute the vote.
Organizers at Compass began campaigning to unionize in October 2022. Among their demands are reinstating credit card chipping and a 401(k) retirement plan that Compass previously offered.
The fight reached a turning point after May 31 of this year, when union leaders said they noticed a slew of new hires added to the payroll after the unionization announcement. Union leaders claim that many of the recent hires have personal ties to Compass executives. Union leaders distributed a list of the new hires to media outlets, including the co-founder and other executives of Union Kitchen, a D.C. food business accelerator with a history of trouble with unions, employees in Uber’s federal relations division, and Haft’s wife and mother-in-law.
But nearly all of the high-profile new hires were absent from the final voter list Compass submitted to the NLRB on Sunday. According to an election agreement signed by Compass and union organizers, to be eligible to vote for the union, employees must have worked at least 52 hours in the 13 weeks ending July 14. The preliminary voter list Compass submitted to the NLRB on June 18 included 167 employees, but the final voter list submitted Sunday reduced that number by 37, or about 22 percent.
The union also argues that some of the new recruits appear vulnerable and hesitant to risk losing their jobs to support the union. The final voter list includes several new recruits who The Washington Post spoke to by phone, including a single mother from southeast Washington working to support her 1-year-old son, a man who doesn’t speak English and at least one person recently released from prison. Union organizers say this is a very different demographic than previous employees.
Union organizers have suggested that Compass will lay off vulnerable workers after the vote if the unionization effort fails. Mr. Haft said that’s not an option. Mr. Haft declined to provide details on how many new employees the company has hired since May 31, but said the company has hired workers to fill vacancies and prepare for new store openings, including three expected to open by the end of the year. He also had few say about individual hires.
The union has filed numerous grievances since the hiring spree, including allegations that Compass fired workers or cut their hours in retaliation for supporting the union. Union organizers have launched a GoFundMe campaign to help the workers. Haft has denied all the allegations.
Both sides said they were optimistic about their chances of success ahead of the NLRB and the election results.
“We’re pretty confident that we’re going to be successful in all of these challenges,” Haft said.
Babin was equally confident.
“I’m very optimistic about what this means for the remaining challenge votes,” Babin said, “so while the road ahead is certainly difficult, we feel more at ease.”
