In August of last year, there were no Starbucks-owned (SBUX  ) stores with unionized workers. Now, there are 16 stores represented by Workers United, and that number is expected to keep growing. More than 175 stores across the country have filed for permission to hold union elections with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as of April 8.

Six of Starbucks' roughly 9,000 U.S. locations held successful votes to unionize on April 7 and 8. Workers at another Starbucks store in Overland Park, Kansas, voted 6-1 in favor of unionizing, but 7 ballots are being contested. Most Starbucks have between 20 and 30 workers eligible to vote on unionizing.

So far, the union has only lost one vote, and that vote is being contested by organizers. Starbucks has been aggressively anti-union throughout the recent push for organization, and the company has twice been accused by the NLRB of firing workers in retaliation for organizing efforts, once in 2019 and again this March.

The union is also accusing the coffee chain of reducing hours nationally in an attempt to push longtime workers to quit so that they can be replaced by anti-union hires. The company has denied these allegations, saying that hours are reduced based on demand.

While Starbucks denies wrongdoing, it is openly opposed to unionizing by its "partners", the intracompany name for employees. Starbucks' efforts to convince workers not to organize include holding anti-union meetings, flooding stores with outside management, closing stores during voting periods, and intimidation tactics by individual managers.

"As soon as the baristas publicly announced they wanted to have a union, corporate executives swarmed into the stores to try to stop them with threats, promises, store closings and overwhelming pressure," Richard Bensinger, an official with Starbucks Workers United, told reporters.

According to Bensinger, Starbucks repeatedly closed stores and relocated workers after organizers gained enough worker authorization signatures to hold a vote. In other cases, the company expanded the number of eligible voters at stores where significant support was gathered in an effort to dilute the pro-union votes.

Employer violations of labor law are incredibly common during unionization campaigns. In fact, employers are charged with violating the law in two out of every five union elections, according to a 2019 report from the Economic Policy Institute. It's worth noting that unionizing efforts have increased significantly since 2019.

Jennifer Abruzzo, the general counsel for the NLBR, announced on April 6 that requests for union elections have increased by 57% during the first Fiscal Year of 2022 (October 1, 2021, through March 31, 2022) compared to the same period in the Fiscal Year 2021. Abruzzo says that the agency doesn't have enough staff or funding to keep up with the increased activity.