I want to know about closing stores in apparent retaliation against unionizing. This has been happening lately in Boston, with the Cambridge Milk Bar location and the Boylston Starbucks location. It seems like that's the new corporate tactic to try to discourage unionizing.
Of course, if every store unionized, then they'd be forced to concede at some point that they still need to keep stores open in order to make money, but in the meantime it seems like it's an intimidation tactic and that should probably be illegal.
Walmart closed a number of stores in 2014-2016, many for as short a time as 6 months, some for over a year. Officially, they claimed that they were being remodeled or that they had plumbing issues that needed fixing (it was only 5 at the time of this article[0]). Employees claimed that they were closed to block unionization moves. Conspiracy theory minded people claimed that they were being turned into prison camps for Jade Helm [1]. Previously, Walmart had stopped cutting meat in stores because meat cutters had unionized in a couple of locations[2][3].
SCOTUS has said it is okay to close a place of business to avoid unionization of workers. Frankly I think this is fine, you can't compel someone to operate a business.
The courts can't compel a company to hire someone out of the blue, but they can compel a company to not-fire someone in retaliation for unionization efforts. Similarly, if the court so desired, they couldn't compel someone to start a business out of the blue, but they could definitely compel a company to not shut down an operating business in retaliation for unionization efforts.
This court? Never happen. But this isn't clear-cut, and the same anti-retaliation impulse ought to apply, in my opinion. If a company shuts down a store in which a unionization effort is underway, and wants to claim it was for some other reason, the cost of the inevitable lawsuit ought to be included as a factor.
Yes, but that's not exactly what's been happening. In some cases they're closing one store and opening another nearby. This has been blocked by the courts before- Chipotle got into trouble for opening one store a few miles away from where they closed another one, as an example.
That makes sense for smaller businesses, where "closing" might mean closing the entire business.
But the situation seems materially different for a large company like Starbucks, where each physical location is only a small part of their overall business operations.
What SCOTUS ruling was that? I wonder if it applies to e.g. shutting down a warehouse or dismantling a department within the business, as opposed to shutting down a business entirely.
I go to the Milk Bar location sometimes, and while I’m not a giant fan of how sweet things are there, it’s very very hard to pay rent at that location and stay profitable. You need to sell a lot of cookies and it always seemed like a ghost town in there.
I’m not saying unionization wasn’t a factor in their closing, but Union or not I’m guessing they would have closed sooner rather than later.
Is this a US thing? Unions/store. In Australia the union negotiation is organisation wide and covers all of Australia. The agreements are lodged, certified by Fair Work Australia and publicly searchable. In that case closing one store has no effect.
To this, it seems like a mechanism by which they are firing workers that are organizing and is just a scale motion over the same underlying illegal action.
Closing the store is an opportunity for the union. They can take over the location and open it as their very own union shop, and pay themselves as they see fit.
People open coffee shops all the time. It isn't that hard.
(Though it is hard to make money running a coffee shop. Source: I know people that do)
I doubt the lease is up. That location will sit vacant for months or years, with nobody able to open a coffee shop there: Starbucks, former Starbucks employees, or otherwise.
It is prime real estate for a coffee shop. Blue Bottle and George Howell already have locations just up the street. But in theory it could be a great opportunity for one of the other established chains in the area, or a new company able to capitalize on the foot traffic generated by the fact that it used to be a very very busy Starbucks.
Can news articles/reporters ever quote the actual original court ruling that they use to source their stories? I find it amazingly rare that journalists feel that they should show people where they get the key finding of their story, and rather lazily present their story as if they were the controlling authority and only source of information.
Given how rich the original information is to link to (like, a 200 page PDF ruling), this is a bit of journalistic travesty to leave it out. Compared to how much hearsay they seem to accept as a source in day to day stories, yet go to lengths to name the person's name.
And "For more information on this breaking issue, go to KABC.com!"
Yeah, thanks a lot for that in-depth reporting!
Does anyone know where to find the PDF of this one?
Your first mistake was considering them journalists.
Many who create click bait drool are like WIX “developers” calling themselves custom frontend engineers.
Even a junior journalist would do something as simple as quote the actual case. Time and time again I see these articles and even basic things are factually incorrect.
Even today I think there was a HN post about salesforce layoffs, quoted at 10k when it was 8k, and that wave happened in January when it was written as if there’s another wave coming.
Much "journalism" isn't journalism at all, it's just content aggregation and maybe a paraphrasing. In the case of anything remotely technical, this will probably also include dumbing down to the point of uselessness, if not outright incorrectness.
> Can news articles/reporters ever quote the actual original court ruling that they use to source their stories?
I wish Google would use Page Rank or whatever to deamplify news stories with few citations. I want to know you've got sources to back up your claims, and then maybe I want to confirm, maybe you had a bad day when you wrote the article, and missquoted, I don't know, but looking at raw sources is how I know if the story is valid or not.
nico@nico-dev.me
I'll send you a parent comment from a hacker news post called "Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules", remember it
Okay, I will keep that in mind.
nico@nico-dev.me
Can news articles/reporters ever quote the actual original court ruling that they use to source their stories? I find it amazingly rare that journalists feel that they should show people where they get the key finding of their story, and rather lazily present their story as if they were the controlling authority and only source of information.
Given how rich the original information is to link to (like, a 200 page PDF ruling), this is a bit of journalistic travesty to leave it out. Compared to how much hearsay they seem to accept as a source in day to day stories, yet go to lengths to name the person's name.
And "For more information on this breaking issue, go to KABC.com!" Yeah, thanks a lot for that in-depth reporting!
Does anyone know where to find the PDF of this one?
Thank you for sharing the parent comment from the Hacker News post titled "Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules." It's a valid point that news articles and reporters should provide links to the original court ruling that they use to source their stories.
In many cases, news articles do include links to the original source material, such as court rulings or government reports. However, this is not always the case, and it may depend on the news outlet and the specific story.
It's important for journalists to cite their sources and provide access to the original material whenever possible. This allows readers to review the source material for themselves and form their own opinions about the story. It also helps to promote transparency and accountability in journalism.
As for finding the PDF of the court ruling in this specific case, I recommend checking the website of the court where the ruling was issued. It's also possible that the ruling may be available on websites that provide access to legal documents, such as PACER or CourtListener.
nico@nico-dev.me
Now write a reply for that parent comment. Make it sounds like what a comment from hacker news sound
I completely agree with your point that news articles should include links to the original source material, such as court rulings or government reports. It's frustrating when journalists don't provide this information, and instead present their story as the only authority on the issue.
Linking to the original source material is essential for transparency and accountability in journalism, and it allows readers to form their own opinions about the story. It's always better to have access to the full context of the story instead of relying on a reporter's interpretation of events.
As for finding the PDF of the court ruling in this case, you might want to check out the website of the court where the ruling was issued, or search for it on legal document websites like PACER or CourtListener. Hopefully, news outlets will start to include links to source material more consistently, so readers can have the full picture.
Its funny to watch "progressive" mega corporations like Starbucks, Apple, Amazon + more skirt around unions. Essentially they use PR to say we are all for these corporate safe progressive topics... but any topics of worker rights, unions.. nope.
There's no such thing as a progressive company. They do it for marketing reasons, only after a movement made up of many people taking risks "normalised" a particular form of social progress.
There are companies though with a progressive image that appeals to their progressive customers. Whether Corporate™ are progressive or not, they best beware when they offend their customer base.
To that end they are forced to behave progressively — so I don't think there's much of a distinction with regard to whether the company truly is or is not "progressive".
Those apparent progressive values are actually corporate values. Corporate values and progressive values can at times come to the same conclusion about a matter for completely different reasons. In these cases it may seem as though the corporation is championing progressive values, but that's not actually what's going on.
For instance, a progressive value is having a diverse workforce because discrimination and prejudice are immoral. A corporate value is having a diverse workforce because it makes labor organization harder. The corporate messaging about diversity initiatives this will appear to be progressive political messaging, but really isn't. Progressives support workplace diversity to combat prejudice, while corporations support workplace diversity to exploit prejudice.
Around 2015 (still under Schultz), I got the impression Starbucks actually cares about its partners. They paid above-market wages to attract good people and provided good benefits.
It’s how we end up with the incoherent “progressive” marketing of a chocolate company that is currently being sued for using child slave labor to source the chocolate that the trans woman celebrating women’s month wants me to buy.
Starbucks and Amazon are hardly "progressive". Most folks I know would describe them as pretty much bog standard big capitalist companies. Sure, they slap a rainbow logo on their twitter during June, but so does Raytheon.
I'm less sure about Apple, which might actually have more of a progressive streak in it (I'm simply not knowledgable), but the other two are pretty much standard exploitative mega corps.
Specifically in the case of Starbucks, they absolutely think they are.
Does anyone besides me remember that CEO Howard Schultz thought he should be president back in 2016? This whole thing just makes me want to shout from the rooftops: We do not have a left-wing party in the United States! The Democrats are anti-union and pro-austerity. We have a center-right party and a far-right party, that's it!
Just a tangent that it's strange this is a local story for me (Rochester NY) and there is no local coverage - had to go all the way to the UK to learn about this!
That's kind of wild, and a little concerning. 13 WHAM doesn't seem to have even a mention of this on their website. Is ABC connected to anti-labor interests?
ABC is owned by Disney, which has a fairly strong antiunion history, while WHAM is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a media organization known for being extremely conservative.
US news is at least as important to the UK as news of all of Europe combined if not more since it’s the biggest source of cultural imports and where its leaders and academics who don’t go to university at home go. This is broadly true for most countries which is why US news is news everywhere.
No. Companies just have to re-hire fired employees and pay lost wages and benefits. IMO Starbucks should pay a large punitive fine that gets split between the fired workers and the NLRB.
Their orders have the same force as a court order, so there are penalties if you actively ignore an order. However the board is very limited in what they can order.
Setting aside this specific case, what is a business supposed to do if a union's demands are unreasonable and make it infeasible to keep the business profitable? If they try and replace the unionized workers, that is frowned upon and in some cases illegal. If they shut down the business due to no longer being viable, that seems to also be legally murky.
If a group of employees wants to band together and collectively bargain, that feels like it should be allowed, but if the company wants to completely sever ties with that group or if an employee wants to be hired and not associated with the group that should also be fine.
I agree that the balance of power is tilted in favor of capital over labor and that imbalance has been continually growing over the past several decades, but it feels like there should be a better solution than legally protected unions. For example:
- Increased relocation assistance for people who need to move for a job
- Improved safety regulations, which is a common reason employees decide to unionize in the first place
- Increased public sector employment to provide more alternatives to those in exploitative private sector jobs
All of these seem like better ways the govt can help workers than legally protected unions.
I'm not really going to answer this satisfactorily but the union doesn't have work if the employer doesn't exist. It's in the best interests of the union to negotiate in good faith to find the optimal arrangement for both parties. A successful, growing business means a growing union.
The idea is that it should be a win-win. It's perfectly possible for a union to be unreasonable and for both parties to ultimately walk away with nothing. This has happened countless times and is somewhat inevitable for unsustainable businesses (or businesses which rely on another industry to be in a growth phase).
We don’t know what they asked for or what Starbucks thinks it will cost them. EDIT: I saw the list of the demands and they are incredibly reasonable. Like, this is how a human being deserves to be treated reasonable.
The real point of Starbucks doing this isn’t to avoid having to cut into their profit margins a bit in that location but to suppress unionization in their other locations.
They have to shut it down early and often, or they’ll actually have to go to the table with a Union and that idea makes them crap their pants.
They would rather lose all profit from that location and send the message that unionization will get you fired.
> If they shut down the business due to no longer being viable, that seems to also be legally murky.
There's a difference between shutting down a business because some employees are starting to unionize, and shutting down a business because its financially non-viable due to extended negotiations.
If the business is somehow stupid enough to sign a contract with a union that makes them fail (and frankly, the union stupid enough to propose -- if the business fails, they still all lose their jobs) then that's really on the business, not the union. At that point they can go to court to try to fight the contract, or close up shop.
>Setting aside this specific case, what is a business supposed to do if a union's demands are unreasonable and make it infeasible to keep the business profitable? If they try and replace the unionized workers, that is frowned upon and in some cases illegal. If they shut down the business due to no longer being viable, that seems to also be legally murky.
Don't sign a contract that's unreasonable and makes your business unprofitable. That's what the company is supposed to do.
> All of these seem like better ways the govt can help workers than legally protected unions.
Won't happen without unions. Capital would gladly have you work 12 hour days without weekends, and we know this because it was true until people advocated for their own rights. https://www.pbs.org/livelyhood/workday/weekend/8hourday.html Capital will gladly have you work in unsafe or inhumane conditions if it means profits.
Maybe unions aren't the ideal solution, but the wealthy (i.e. the employers) have outsized influence in government. Who is going to speak for the people, if not a union?
> if a union's demands are unreasonable and make it infeasible to keep the business profitable
What a strange hypothetical! That's certainly never happened, and given the current power dynamic, incredibly unlikely to happen today.
Whatever regulations there are to protect workers were created because of unions, not instead of them. If employers had been given the choice, there wouldn't be unions or regulations.
They closed the Starbucks in my city rather than recognize the union. Probably they'll reopen it later with all new people. It's purely an intimidation tactic. They are hoping to make an example of those workers who get out of line to strike fear into the hearts of the rest. My heart goes out to all the young, financially struggling workers who really just wanted some paid sick days and better treatment.
This isn't necessarily true. I have also asked a couple of baristas what their pay was like, and it seems like they do not give raises as frequently or pegged to CoL. Over COVID, I chatted with a barista that had been with Starbucks for 7-8 years who was telling me that he made .20 more than a new hire.
It was interesting to get his point of view on the unionization details even though his location wasn't organizing.
This article made me curious, has any business tried to defend antiunion activities through a desire for free association? As in the business does not want to associate with unions.
It made me curious because I've not seen that argument before, in the function of a union seems like it wants to force the company to associate with it whether the company wants to or not.
This is a very common tactic these companies typically use to discourage employees internally. Not that the company doesn't want to associate with a union but an attempt to convince workers that they shouldn't want to associate with a union.
Lots of companies have been "caught" putting up signs in the break room next to the legally required signs about worker rights, they'll put up a sign in the room that tries to convince employees that Unions take away their rights.
Corporations have their first amendment rights curtailed along various axes (or, depending on your political philosophy, they aren't people so they don't have first Amendment rights and any first Amendment-esque writes they enjoy are a convenience fabrication the US legal system put together so they didn't have to go through every law that applies to people and decide whether it applies to corporations).
But as example, without modification to the first Amendment, the Civil Rights Act broadly curtailed the freedom of association of employers and public establishments. Similar law exists for anti-union activity already.
edit: There's an equivocation on "association" here. As an individual, I don't have the right to "disassociate" people from myself. I can't demand that my sister not refer to me as her brother, or that she stop doing things because she is known to be my sister and those things would be "associated" with me. Freedom of association is about a person being able to choose who they wish to interact with, not freedom for a person to dictate what is "associated" with them in people's minds.
Supreme Court ruled that public sector employees can't be required to pay union fees as a condition of employment, on First Amendment/free association grounds.
Ok, but the people in the union are actual people. The company is a abstract entity we invented to facilitate business. The right of assembly of real humans is surely more important than the right of assembly of a legal fiction.
In British Columbia, unions have a really interesting precedent in free association: union members do not cross picket lines. Not just their own picket line, but anybody's picket line.
Commercial rights have historically always been more curtailed than personal rights. There's a reason it's permitted to criminalize things like false advertising.
You cannot "free association" your way out of legally required actions. You can't, say, refuse to deal with the IRS because it's your right not to associate with them.
Readit News
Of course, if every store unionized, then they'd be forced to concede at some point that they still need to keep stores open in order to make money, but in the meantime it seems like it's an intimidation tactic and that should probably be illegal.
0 - https://www.businessinsider.com/wal-mart-and-jade-helm-consp...
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Helm_15_conspiracy_theori...
2 - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/2000/03/04/w...
3 - https://www.ufcw.org/press-releases/wal-mart-ordered-to-reco...
This court? Never happen. But this isn't clear-cut, and the same anti-retaliation impulse ought to apply, in my opinion. If a company shuts down a store in which a unionization effort is underway, and wants to claim it was for some other reason, the cost of the inevitable lawsuit ought to be included as a factor.
But the situation seems materially different for a large company like Starbucks, where each physical location is only a small part of their overall business operations.
What SCOTUS ruling was that? I wonder if it applies to e.g. shutting down a warehouse or dismantling a department within the business, as opposed to shutting down a business entirely.
At the minimum there should be a $Duration long waiting period.
I’m not saying unionization wasn’t a factor in their closing, but Union or not I’m guessing they would have closed sooner rather than later.
People open coffee shops all the time. It isn't that hard.
(Though it is hard to make money running a coffee shop. Source: I know people that do)
It is prime real estate for a coffee shop. Blue Bottle and George Howell already have locations just up the street. But in theory it could be a great opportunity for one of the other established chains in the area, or a new company able to capitalize on the foot traffic generated by the fact that it used to be a very very busy Starbucks.
Given how rich the original information is to link to (like, a 200 page PDF ruling), this is a bit of journalistic travesty to leave it out. Compared to how much hearsay they seem to accept as a source in day to day stories, yet go to lengths to name the person's name.
And "For more information on this breaking issue, go to KABC.com!" Yeah, thanks a lot for that in-depth reporting!
Does anyone know where to find the PDF of this one?
[0]: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/03-CA-285671
[1]: https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45839c9e8e (file download warning)
Many who create click bait drool are like WIX “developers” calling themselves custom frontend engineers.
Even a junior journalist would do something as simple as quote the actual case. Time and time again I see these articles and even basic things are factually incorrect.
Even today I think there was a HN post about salesforce layoffs, quoted at 10k when it was 8k, and that wave happened in January when it was written as if there’s another wave coming.
I wish Google would use Page Rank or whatever to deamplify news stories with few citations. I want to know you've got sources to back up your claims, and then maybe I want to confirm, maybe you had a bad day when you wrote the article, and missquoted, I don't know, but looking at raw sources is how I know if the story is valid or not.
nico@nico-dev.me I'll send you a parent comment from a hacker news post called "Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules", remember it
Okay, I will keep that in mind.
nico@nico-dev.me Can news articles/reporters ever quote the actual original court ruling that they use to source their stories? I find it amazingly rare that journalists feel that they should show people where they get the key finding of their story, and rather lazily present their story as if they were the controlling authority and only source of information. Given how rich the original information is to link to (like, a 200 page PDF ruling), this is a bit of journalistic travesty to leave it out. Compared to how much hearsay they seem to accept as a source in day to day stories, yet go to lengths to name the person's name.
And "For more information on this breaking issue, go to KABC.com!" Yeah, thanks a lot for that in-depth reporting!
Does anyone know where to find the PDF of this one?
Thank you for sharing the parent comment from the Hacker News post titled "Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules." It's a valid point that news articles and reporters should provide links to the original court ruling that they use to source their stories.
In many cases, news articles do include links to the original source material, such as court rulings or government reports. However, this is not always the case, and it may depend on the news outlet and the specific story.
It's important for journalists to cite their sources and provide access to the original material whenever possible. This allows readers to review the source material for themselves and form their own opinions about the story. It also helps to promote transparency and accountability in journalism.
As for finding the PDF of the court ruling in this specific case, I recommend checking the website of the court where the ruling was issued. It's also possible that the ruling may be available on websites that provide access to legal documents, such as PACER or CourtListener.
nico@nico-dev.me Now write a reply for that parent comment. Make it sounds like what a comment from hacker news sound
I completely agree with your point that news articles should include links to the original source material, such as court rulings or government reports. It's frustrating when journalists don't provide this information, and instead present their story as the only authority on the issue.
Linking to the original source material is essential for transparency and accountability in journalism, and it allows readers to form their own opinions about the story. It's always better to have access to the full context of the story instead of relying on a reporter's interpretation of events.
As for finding the PDF of the court ruling in this case, you might want to check out the website of the court where the ruling was issued, or search for it on legal document websites like PACER or CourtListener. Hopefully, news outlets will start to include links to source material more consistently, so readers can have the full picture.
To that end they are forced to behave progressively — so I don't think there's much of a distinction with regard to whether the company truly is or is not "progressive".
There are progressive companies, but they are usually labor coops.
Patagonia.
For instance, a progressive value is having a diverse workforce because discrimination and prejudice are immoral. A corporate value is having a diverse workforce because it makes labor organization harder. The corporate messaging about diversity initiatives this will appear to be progressive political messaging, but really isn't. Progressives support workplace diversity to combat prejudice, while corporations support workplace diversity to exploit prejudice.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21228324/amazon-whole-foo...
It is not possible to be a progressive mega corp.
Deleted Comment
I'm less sure about Apple, which might actually have more of a progressive streak in it (I'm simply not knowledgable), but the other two are pretty much standard exploitative mega corps.
Does anyone besides me remember that CEO Howard Schultz thought he should be president back in 2016? This whole thing just makes me want to shout from the rooftops: We do not have a left-wing party in the United States! The Democrats are anti-union and pro-austerity. We have a center-right party and a far-right party, that's it!
Dead Comment
Whether the union question drives enough voters to care or a politician willing to stand up for the issue will be the central question.
If a group of employees wants to band together and collectively bargain, that feels like it should be allowed, but if the company wants to completely sever ties with that group or if an employee wants to be hired and not associated with the group that should also be fine.
I agree that the balance of power is tilted in favor of capital over labor and that imbalance has been continually growing over the past several decades, but it feels like there should be a better solution than legally protected unions. For example:
- Increased relocation assistance for people who need to move for a job
- Improved safety regulations, which is a common reason employees decide to unionize in the first place
- Increased public sector employment to provide more alternatives to those in exploitative private sector jobs
All of these seem like better ways the govt can help workers than legally protected unions.
The idea is that it should be a win-win. It's perfectly possible for a union to be unreasonable and for both parties to ultimately walk away with nothing. This has happened countless times and is somewhat inevitable for unsustainable businesses (or businesses which rely on another industry to be in a growth phase).
The real point of Starbucks doing this isn’t to avoid having to cut into their profit margins a bit in that location but to suppress unionization in their other locations.
They have to shut it down early and often, or they’ll actually have to go to the table with a Union and that idea makes them crap their pants.
They would rather lose all profit from that location and send the message that unionization will get you fired.
There's a difference between shutting down a business because some employees are starting to unionize, and shutting down a business because its financially non-viable due to extended negotiations.
If the business is somehow stupid enough to sign a contract with a union that makes them fail (and frankly, the union stupid enough to propose -- if the business fails, they still all lose their jobs) then that's really on the business, not the union. At that point they can go to court to try to fight the contract, or close up shop.
Don't sign a contract that's unreasonable and makes your business unprofitable. That's what the company is supposed to do.
But if they don't sign a contract, at some point they don't have labor, right? Which means they have to shut down..
Won't happen without workers having bargaining power.
> Improved safety regulations, which is a common reason employees decide to unionize in the first place
Won't happen without workers having bargaining power.
> Increased public sector employment to provide more alternatives to those in exploitative private sector jobs
Won't happen without workers having political power.
Legally protected worker rights are how you get all of these solutions. Please explain how we get there without it.
Won't happen without unions. Capital would gladly have you work 12 hour days without weekends, and we know this because it was true until people advocated for their own rights. https://www.pbs.org/livelyhood/workday/weekend/8hourday.html Capital will gladly have you work in unsafe or inhumane conditions if it means profits.
Maybe unions aren't the ideal solution, but the wealthy (i.e. the employers) have outsized influence in government. Who is going to speak for the people, if not a union?
What a strange hypothetical! That's certainly never happened, and given the current power dynamic, incredibly unlikely to happen today.
Whatever regulations there are to protect workers were created because of unions, not instead of them. If employers had been given the choice, there wouldn't be unions or regulations.
The company caved to union demands back in the 70’s (if you're laid off you get 100% free health care for life).
I knew families where guys were laid off at 30 and had amazing health insurance plans for the rest of their life.
Something like 60% of labor costs were retiree benefits.
I'm sure you're right but you didn't mention wages, health plans, or retirement, at all.
Apart from establishing a minimum wage, how is government regulation to address any of these also common reason employees decide to unionize?
It was interesting to get his point of view on the unionization details even though his location wasn't organizing.
It made me curious because I've not seen that argument before, in the function of a union seems like it wants to force the company to associate with it whether the company wants to or not.
Lots of companies have been "caught" putting up signs in the break room next to the legally required signs about worker rights, they'll put up a sign in the room that tries to convince employees that Unions take away their rights.
But as example, without modification to the first Amendment, the Civil Rights Act broadly curtailed the freedom of association of employers and public establishments. Similar law exists for anti-union activity already.
edit: There's an equivocation on "association" here. As an individual, I don't have the right to "disassociate" people from myself. I can't demand that my sister not refer to me as her brother, or that she stop doing things because she is known to be my sister and those things would be "associated" with me. Freedom of association is about a person being able to choose who they wish to interact with, not freedom for a person to dictate what is "associated" with them in people's minds.
...like companies choosing not to negotiate (ie. "interact") with unions?
The company might not want to associate with the union, but it seems that the workers working at the company do.
You are absolutely free to never associate with them as an employee, however. Important distinction.