On Feb. 14, 2022, a Starbucks manager pulled Michaela Sellaro aside for a meeting.

Just a few weeks earlier, Sellaro and a group of her fellow baristas at the coffee shop at 2975 East Colfax Ave. in Denver informed the company’s CEO that they planned to organize a union.

In the early afternoon, at a table by the windows, the store and district managers sat Sellaro down for a chat. The message, though light and breezy, was clear: “You know Starbucks’ stance is that we don’t need a union to represent our partners,” Kaylin Driscoll, the district manager, told Sellaro, according to a recording reviewed by The Denver Post.

Relationships with leadership will degrade if employees vote to organize, the managers told her. Promotions could be nixed. Benefits might change.

“The dynamic of having

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