 The National Labor Relations Board has accused Starbucks of illegally retaliating against employees who have tried to form unions, and they have an abundance of evidence to support these claims. For months now, we've detailed the way that Starbucks has been going out of their way to penalize employees who are trying to form unions. And their union busting includes cutting hours to full-time employees so that way they no longer qualify for health care benefits, offering new exclusive benefits to employees who are not engaging in forming a union. And they've also fired workers who have been trying to form unions, and they've been so brazen about this that a federal judge back in August actually ordered them to rehire seven union leaders who they fired. So it's been going on, but yet they claim that this isn't happening and that they're not going out of their way to retaliate against employees who are trying to form unions. It's a laughable claim. But as little as we already believe them, now we have definitive proof that this is indeed what they're doing, and a manager is speaking out saying that he, in his authority as manager, was instructed by the company to punish employees who engage in trying to form a union. As Common Dreams explains, David Allman, who until January managed several stores in the Buffalo area where the pro-labor push among Starbucks workers across the US began in 2021, told the NLRB in sworn testimony in August that the company had provided him with a list of pro-union employees and told him to find reasons to reprimand or penalize them. According to a transcript of Allman's testimony, which Bloomberg obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, the company pushed back when Allman told higher ups that a particular person on the list was an exemplary employee and there was nothing for which he could reprimand her. A corporate employee told Allman to go through her files, he told the NLRB, and also said to him, I'm sure there's something in there we can use against her. The list provided to Allman included workers that the company had determined supported the unionization campaign, which has now spread from Buffalo to 330 stores in 38 states with 248 stores so far voting in favor of joining a union. Now that last sentence right there is why they are so desperate. Within the span of one year, in fact less than a year, hundreds of stores have unionized. So this momentum isn't slowing down anytime soon. So Starbucks is grasping for straws here. They're trying to find anything to dissuade their workers from forming unions. And it's just not working, which is why they're going so far as to even illegally punish these workers for trying to form a union. You can't do that. It's illegal, but they don't care because whatever fine that they'll end up being slapped with, it's less than the cost of having to pay their workers more in the end if this unionization effort continues to spread. Now there are a couple of other things specifically that Allman said here. He said that he was instructed to follow a worker after they were seen with the pro union sign. Now I don't know if they told Allman to follow this worker outside of store hours either way. That's incredibly creepy on top of that. He was advised to remain present in stores at all times so that way if there's any union talk, you can break that shit up immediately. And yeah. So he ended up quitting because he's principled and he didn't want to do things like this. Now I absolutely believe him. There's no reason to not believe him and every reason to not believe what Starbucks is saying here. But when I was the manager of a blockbuster, they never instructed us to break up union activity. I mean, there was no union activity. It was owned by Dish Network at the time and the company was going under and that was abundantly clear. So they never trained us with regard to unions, but they did instruct us to crack down on employees who weren't meeting sales quotas. So corporate absolutely demands certain things from management and if management doesn't meet expectations, then they get penalized as well. So seeing that Allman probably didn't want to engage in these things or definitely didn't want to engage in these things. He foresaw that he didn't really have a future at this company and that since he wasn't engaging in the union busting that they demanded, he was going to be fired. So that's why he decided to resign and leave the company. So it's really sad because the way that they turn workers against workers, even though we're talking about management here, still management, this is a working class individual, but the company demands that management be extremely hard on workers and this animosity that that pressure from corporate creates and fosters that leads to these situations where the environment at work is so toxic that these types of union conversations can even take place, which is why I think it's relatively rare. But in the case of Starbucks, you see absolute solidarity here, not just with the workers, but with management as well. And the only time we've seen, at least to my knowledge, we've seen Starbucks managers really crack down on employees who are unionizing is when a manager quits or gets fired and then corporate brings in a new manager who is willing to be a union buster. Now, I'm not sure if that person worked at corporate previously or if that individual was hired specifically with the knowledge, knowing that they're going to be expected to break up these unions. I'm not sure, but to be put in that situation where you have to go after your employees when you know that they did nothing wrong for one and knowing that it's illegal. Yeah, I don't I don't fault Almond for quitting. So these are the things that Starbucks is going to continue to do because the unionization is spreading and they're absolutely terrified. And you know what? You love to see it. I know that they don't fear the fines. I know that they don't care that they're breaking the law, but still to see them squirm this much because of the unionization momentum, it's just really good to see the labor movement. It's like the one thing that gives me hope. You and I absolutely support the workers here. I just want to leave you with this final note. If you see a Starbucks location in your area that is unionizing, do not cross the picket line, stand in solidarity with those workers. Do not shop at that location. If that Starbucks is fighting this unionization effort, that's one thing that I always instruct my viewers. I know that wide scale boycotts are very difficult to form. But one thing that you can do on a small level, you can make a small difference simply by not shopping at that location in support of those workers. And I'll leave that there.