Starbucks asks the National Labor Board to suspend elections amid union busting

Starbucks is asking the federal labor board to suspend all mail-in ballot union elections nationwide, accusing them of misconduct in the voting process by the board s personnel and the union organizing its baristas.

The Seattle-based coffee giant wrote a letter to the chairman and general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board on Monday that the labor board's officials acted inappropriately during an election in the Kansas City area and likely acted similarly in other elections. A career NLRB professional approached Starbucks as a whistleblower.

More than 220 Starbucks cafes in the U.S. have voted to unionize, according to an NLRB tally as of Friday. More than 34 more stores are waiting to schedule elections, and 34 more have been ordered or are in progress.

Starbucks Workers United and the NLRB didn't respond immediately to requests for comment from CNBC.

Starbucks has asked that all future elections be held in person while the allegations can be investigated, in addition to asking for a pause on all scheduled mail-in elections at its U.S. stores.

NLRB officials co-ordinated with union agents to arrange in-person voting at the labor board's offices during mail-in ballot elections, according to Starbucks. The union could target employees who hadn't voted because Workers United agents were given confidential, real-time information about specific vote counts, according to the company. The company said that NLRB officials and Workers United were allegedly co-ordinated to cover up this activity.

The Starbucks letter details the email correspondence that was allegedly between union representatives and labor board officials. The company was informed of the emails contents by the whistleblower.

Until a thorough investigation is conducted, it's anyone's guess how many elections in how many other regions have been similarly infected, the company said in the letter.

Under interim CEO Howard Schultz, Starbucks has been more aggressively opposed to unionization efforts at its locations. The coffee chain has been working to curb the union's momentum, but the number of unionized cafes is a small part of Starbucks'nearly 9,000 company-owned cafes.

For example, Starbucks announced a new round of pay hikes in May for tenured workers, but said they wouldn't apply to unionized locations, saying they would have to go through the bargaining process. Workers United asked the company to extend the pay hikes to those locations earlier this month.

According to the NLRB, Starbucks is facing 284 charges of unfair labor practices from the union. Allegations of the company's misconduct include claims that it illegally fired organizers, shuttered stores or harassed employees to stop baristas from unionizing. Starbucks has denied all of the claims of union busting.

The labor board filed two of its own charges against union organizers in Phoenix and Denver. The NLRB dismissed the Phoenix claim, saying there wasn't enough evidence that pro-union workers harassed fellow employees and customers during a rally.