Reuters
A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday rejected Starbucks' claims that an election won by a union at the coffee company's flagship Seattle store was invalid because it was held via mail ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic. A three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld a National Labor Relations Board decision that said the company, which is facing a nationwide union organizing campaign, must recognize and bargain with the store's union, which represents nearly 100 workers. Starbucks claimed that a labor board official who ordered the mail-ballot election in March 2022 used the wrong data to determine that an in-person election was unsafe because there was an upward trend in COVID cases in the Seattle area at the time.