Media that empowers working people – that's how we build a More Perfect Union.

Don't Miss a Video!

Access our exclusive reporting and rapid response actions directly in your inbox, so you don’t miss a beat in the fight for working people nationwide.

Be a part of a community backing up independent journalism with action.

Ideas

Have a story to tell or idea to share?
Email [email protected]
© 2021 More Perfect Union Action

Together we can build power for working people.

We’re asking questions that really matter, and telling the stories of people who really need to be seen and heard.

You can support our work by donating today.

Amount

Make It Monthly

Don't Miss a Video!

Access our exclusive reporting and rapid response actions directly in your inbox, so you don’t miss a beat in the fight for working people nationwide.

Be a part of a community backing up independent journalism with action.

Chipotle Workers in Kansas Are Unionizing

If successful, workers in Lawrence would form the second unionized Chipotle store, but they face new and outrageous anti-union tactics from management.

Chiptole

Employees at a second Chipotle location are unionizing, this time in Lawrence, Kansas. The young workers are forming an independent union, and facing harsh – and likely illegal – pushback from management. A majority of workers’ signatures were collected on a petition to submit to the National Labor Relations Board, only to have that petition thrown away by management. So now they’re filing an Unfair Labor Practice as they push for a fair unionization process.

Quinlan Muller has worked at Chipotle for four years, at three different stores. “The Mass Street location is one of the most difficult stores I’ve worked at. We are understaffed, employees aren’t properly trained, and it’s not, like, the cleanest compared to other Chipotles.” For Muller, it wasn’t a hard decision. A friend of hers had organized a Starbucks in Lawrence earlier this year, and she had read about the Lansing Chipotle workers who formed the company’s first U.S. unionwith the Teamsters in August. At 21, she’s one of the older workers at the store, and is soon to graduate, which might mean leaving Chipotle. “I was like, now is the time to leave it in a better place,” says Muller.

Like her counterparts in Lansing and so many young workers at Starbucks across the country, Muller got to work collecting signatures to submit to the National Labor Relations Board. After doing her research on the NLRB, she put together her own petition. At the top, she wrote, “The current working conditions of this location are becoming increasingly intolerable, and we, the employees, are not in a dignified position to advocate for ourselves on an individual level. We believe that due to various factors, a union is necessary to effectively bargain for things such as adequate pay, tolerable working conditions, and beneficiary protections being put into place to defend our best interest.”

Earlier this month, Muller had quickly collected a majority of signatures among the store’s 25 or so employees. Management got wind of the effort, and began sending in higher-ups from their “People Experience” department. “They talked to every single person, one on one,” says Muller. They asked each employee about their union activity, and lied about what a union would mean for workers – you’ll lose your benefits, you’ll lose your tips, managers won’t be able to help.

The playbook sounds a lot like what workers faced in Lansing, says Atulya Dora-Laskey, one of the lead member organizers of the Michigan store. They even sent in the very same executive, Caroline Sherrier, an “HR Business Partner” at Chipotle and self-described “Trust Builder” and “Change Master,” per her LinkedIn page.

The big difference in Lawrence is that management found the workers’ petition before they had a chance to file it and threw it away. When Muller confronted management, they initially denied throwing the petition in the trash; “I was like, ‘So did it just magically disappear from the office?’” recalls Muller, “And [the manager] was like, ‘Um, yeah.’”

After management started union-busting, Muller reached out to the Lansing Chipotle workers and to the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, or EWOC, for help. They traded notes and made a plan to fight back.

Now, the workers are filing an unfair labor practice claim with the NLRB. They’re also re-starting the petition drive, though management’s interference has already had a chilling effect on some of the workers. Muller re-wrote the petition, and added a section:

“This is my second time drafting this petition. Initially it was easy to get support, and over 50% of employees signed it with no hesitation. Unfortunately, my employer took advantage of when I accidentally left this document at work, and a manager knowingly threw it in the garbage. By the time I went back to work to retrieve it, our regional field leader had come in and talked with every single person who signed their name and told them worst case scenarios about the consequences of forming a union. Now no one is willing to sign it again.”

“Union busting is alive and well at this Chipotle. The signatures you see on this petition are representative of the obstacles I have overcome to help this Chipotle crew take a stand for themselves. By signing this petition, I agree that I work at this Chipotle location, and I support unionizing this store.”

Related Stories

YouTube Thumbnail
Chipotle Workers Are Trying To Form The Company’s First Union
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
How To Form A Union: Two Chefs Explain
Read More

The Latest

YouTube Thumbnail
What Scorpion Venom Has To Do With Amazon’s Monopoly
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Our Camera Footage Got Raided. You Won’t Believe Why.
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Michigan’s Bold New Solution to High Drug Prices
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Why U.S. Hospitals Are Closing At An Alarming Rate
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
We Went to the Most Unequal Place in America
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Big Pharma’s 20-Year War On America
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Whistleblower Exposes Health Insurance Companies’ Most Evil Scheme
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
What Disney Doesn’t Want You to Know About Visual Effects
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Inside the Exploitation at Vegas’s MGM and Caesar’s Palace
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
How Four Companies Took Over Our Food Supply
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
How Internet Companies like Verizon And Comcast Abandoned Rural America
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
What Nestle and Abbott Don’t Want You to Know
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Trump Could Lose These Voters. Here’s Why.
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Chicago’s Radical Solution For Broken Tipping Culture
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
The Hidden Reason Manufacturing Jobs Have Disappeared
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
The Truth About Medicare Advantage
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
Marvel workers won the first union in visual effects history
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
We Uncovered a Shocking Right-Wing Plot to Eradicate Public Schools
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
The Government’s Radical Solution to Lower Drug Prices
Read More
YouTube Thumbnail
This New Deal Jobs Program Is Coming Back
Read More