Barstool Sports Anti-union Controversy

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Part of a series on Barstool Sports. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Barstool Sports Anti-union Controversy refers to strongly anti-union comments made on Twitter by Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, including threats to immediately fire and sue anyone who discussed unionizing with a lawyer. It was then pointed out by the New York State Department of Labor that taking negative action against employees for union-related activities is against the law under the National Labor Relations Act.

Background

On August 12th, 2019, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy responded to reports that employees at sports site The Ringer were working to unionize and responded with a link to a piece he wrote in June of 2015 in which he stated "BAHAHA! I hope and I pray that Barstool employees try to unionize. I can’t tell you how much I want them to unionize. Just so I can smash their little union to smithereens. Nothing would please me more than to break it into a million little pieces."^[1]^[2]

Later that day, the Barstool Sports Twitter account quoted Portnoy saying "Unions are for pussies. At least in our world."^[3]

Developments

In response, Twitter user @theycallmedubs^[4] wrote "Lawyer here. If any Barstool employees are looking to unionize and run into problems, I would be happy to help out in any way. Pro bono" (shown below, left). User @rafiletzer^[7] tweeted "If you work for Barstool and want to have a private chat about the unionization process, how little power your boss has to stop you, and how you can leverage that power to make your life better: my DMs are open" (shown below, right).

In response, Portnoy quoted the tweets and threatened his employees, saying that if anyone contacted him they would be fired and sued.^[5]^[6]

The New York State Department of Labor^[8] quoted Twitter user @jordanuhl, who had screenshotted the tweets, saying "It is illegal to take any unfavorable action – including termination – against employees for union-related activities under the National Labor Relations Act. New York is a proud union state. We say no way, no how to intimidation, threats and union busting" (shown below). Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also tweeted that Portnoy's comments were illegal^[9] (shown below, right). Portnoy responded to Ocasio-Cortez by saying, "welcome to the thunderdome. debate me."^[10]