Starbucks’ Howard Schultz faces Bernie Sanders at union-busting hearing
Starbucks’ former CEO Howard Schultz will face off with one of his fiercest critics on Wednesday before a Senate committee that has accused the coffee chain of running “the most significant union-busting campaign in modern history”.
The hearing, “No Company is Above the Law: The Need to End Illegal Union Busting at Starbucks,” is being chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders, a longtime critic of Starbucks’ anti-union activities.
Starbucks had initially resisted calls for Schultz to appear. He agreed after the committee threatened to subpoena him.
Before the hearing, Sanders released a report by the committee’s majority staff outlining Starbucks’ record of unfair labor practice charges.
The report found Starbucks broke the law 130 times in six states and is facing an additional 70 cases. Misconduct ranged from firing workers in retaliation for union organizing to shutting down stores, withholding pay and benefits, and comments made by Schultz himself.
“There is mounting evidence that the $113bn company’s anti-union efforts include a pattern of flagrant violations of federal labor law,” the report claims. “Starbucks has engaged in the most significant union-busting campaign in modern history. It has been led by Howard Schultz.”
Nearly 300 Starbucks stores around the US have won union elections since the first Starbucks stores unionized in December 2021, though the rate of election filings slowed after an initial surge. Since that time, Starbucks has fought hard to stop the unionization drive and faces more unfair labor practice allegations than any other private employer in the US.
Naomi Martinez, a shift supervisor at a unionized Starbucks in Phoenix, Arizona, said she wanted to hear Schultz publicly explain Starbucks’ response to
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