We just recently had a store meeting to talk about unionizing stores and to "get to know the facts". The district manager told my store manager to have one to discuss the current events. My manager started off by listing all the benefits we, as partners, have received since the beginning and the new ones to come later this year. My manager asked questions such as why do you think baristas want to unionize, and if we knew what percentage of the store would have to vote yes to turn into a union store.
What I'm more curious about was my manager mentioned that if even a single person signs a form saying they are possibly interested in unionizing, the whole store in turn becomes a store in the process of unionizing. From the outcome of the store becoming that, all baristas current benefits such as health coverage, dental, vision, daily food and drink mark outs, etc all get paused. The reason the manager said is because it is up to the union to represent us and negotiate the benefits we receive. To my understanding I thought you don't lose any benefits for unionizing by law as it's considered retaliation, We were told that the benefits get put on pause because we are hourly employees and that only applies to salary workers. Is that true? 0r was my manager telling lies that the district manager told them to say? Is this scare tactics or actual facts?