A Starbucks worker at the center of unionization efforts did not disclose she was a paid organizer with the coffee chain’s chapter of Workers United when she testified before Congress last year, The Post has learned.
Michelle Eisen, who spoke at a hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee in September, was paid $49,734 by the Service Employees International Union affiliate in 2022, according to the group’s annual report.
But in a Sept. 14 disclosure form Eisen filled out to accompany her testimony, she claimed she was representing just herself as a barista. Lying to Congress, including on a disclosure form, is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, though such cases are rarely prosecuted.
“I only recently found out that Ms. Eisen was a paid, Big Labor operative, which she should have disclosed before she testified at the Committee hearing if she was, in fact, being paid at the same time as her testimony,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) told The Post Monday.
“Her deceitfulness was shameful, and it once again shows the dishonest lengths that union operatives are willing to go to tilt the playing field in their favor, no matter the consequences,” said Foxx, who was the committee’s ranking member at the time. “Ms. Eisen’s testimony was a disservice to every working family in America and a stark reminder of why it’s so important that Congress ensures the [National Labor Relations Board] is—and remains—impartial.”
Starbucks Workers United did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Eisen’s concealment may have been part of a wider effort by the labor group to “salt” the workplace with employees who planned to push Starbucks into its first successful unionization at a store in Buffalo.
Eisen worked at the first-ever unionized Starbucks, and Workers United sent at least ten other baristas into Buffalo area franchises in the lead-up to the organizing campaign, Bloomberg reported.
The report found one of those Workers United organizers tried to build trust with his hiring manager by saying he would blab about any of his fellow employees who complained about workplace conditions.
Will Westlake, the organizer, also took upon himself the most menial tasks in order to gain trust from his employer, such as cleaning hard-to-reach areas.
Workers United has paid Starbucks employees nearly $2.5 million to be involved in unionizing efforts, according to a report from LaborUnionNews.com.
As of last December, Starbucks Workers United reported 270 stores have successfully unionized.
More than 2,000 unionized baristas went on strike the month before on “Red Cup Day” to protest being “underpaid, forced to run understaffed stores and they don’t have consistent schedules they can rely on,” the union said.
Starbucks interim CEO Howard Schultz, who returned to the company in April 2022, has opposed unionizing at franchise locations and embarked on a nationwide tour of stores to try to dissuade employees from voting to form unions.
Eisen cited during her testimony more than 350 unfair labor practice charges filed by Workers United, of which nearly 100 have generated administrative complaints from the NLRB.
In March, Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee grilled Schultz over his efforts, with Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) calling his actions “the most aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign in the modern history of our country.”
Earlier this month, decertification petitions backed by conservative groups began circulating at the sixth store in Buffalo to unionize, as well as other stores in Rochester and New York City.
The Starbucks employee who initiated the petition — which gained approval from a majority of workers at the store in the Big Apple — is now being represented by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
“It is telling that union bosses are so reliant on deception in their campaign to add Starbucks’ workers to their forced union dues ranks,” Patrick Semmens, the group’s vice president, told The Post. “Whether it is misleading Congress or just their fellow coworkers about their status as paid union agents, union organizers’ dishonesty in their campaign is probably one of the reasons why we are already seeing so many Starbucks workers asking for votes to remove the union nearly as soon as permitted by federal law.”
Eisen told lawmakers last year that she initially enjoyed “the opportunity to work for a company that had a reputation of being progressive, caring about their communities, and most importantly taking care of their employees.”
“Unfortunately, over the last several years things began to shift within the company,” she said. “I realize now how naïve I was, but I honestly believed that Starbucks was at heart the progressive company it proclaimed itself to be.”
Workers United owns a 40% stake in Amalgamated Bank, which has invested more than $700 million in fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil and nearly $70 million in tobacco and gun companies, according to a report from the Center for Union Facts.