The growing push to unionize QSRs took another step this week with employees at a Chipotle store in Augusta Maine formally filing a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a union representation election. If the petition is approved by NLRB (a fairly safe assumption) and the employees vote to unionize, it will be the first union store in the Chipotle brand. As we know, the QSR unionization effort began in earnest with Starbucks stores in the Buffalo NY market voting to unionize last fall the first store within Starbucks. Since that time, over 150 of the brand’s stores have voted to unionize their workforce with many more representation elections scheduled with the NLRB throughout the coming weeks and months. Chipotle, which operates all of its own stores without any franchisees, currently has just under 3,000 stores open in the continental United States with only a half dozen of those in the state of Maine.