At about 5:15 AM on Monday, two police officers and a handful of strikebreakers showed up with a U-Haul at the Boston Starbucks store at 874 Commonwealth Avenue to take away patio furniture. Striking workers had been using the chairs and other gear. Organizers say the purpose of the visit was to intimidate strikers, who are maintaining a 24-7 picket at the site.

Baristas at the store have been on an unfair labor practice (ULP) strike for more than three weeks, marking the first open-ended strike of any significant length in the brief history of the national Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) movement. The trigger for the strike was what workers say is the company’s flagrant union busting at the store. Workers and observers around the country have claimed such tactics are central to the company’s response to the hundreds of union drives that have kicked off at Starbucks locations in the past nine months. (In response to the company’s conduct, labor scholar John Logan called Starbucks “one of the worst union busters in recent memory” earlier this summer.)

Spencer Costigan, a shift manager at the Boston store where the strike is underway, and their coworkers unanimously won a union on June 3. Less than a week later, they had a new manager who also manages a different, nonunion Starbucks location.