Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks, who has adhered to ‘unionless management’, denied his union suppression and insisted that his employees were treated at the highest wages in a US Senate hearing.
On the 30th (local time), US ABC News reported that former Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont) asked a question at a hearing convened by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to investigate Starbucks’ suspicion of union suppression. Reportedly, the CEO responded as follows.
Sanders accused former CEO Schultz of “perpetrating one of the most aggressive and illegal union sabotages in modern American history.” He was asked whether he had been notified of or involved in a decision to fire an employee who had participated in a union movement, and whether he had ever threatened, coerced, or intimidated a worker because he supported the union.
In response, former CEO Schultz answered no to all questions, arguing that workers have the right to choose whether or not to join a union. He then insisted that the company “never broke the law.”
He also claimed that throughout his tenure as CEO of Starbucks, the company negotiated in “good faith” with workers who were trying to unionize and gain collective benefits.
“Starbucks already treats its workers with the highest wages,” he said, emphasizing that only 3,400 of Starbucks’ 250,000 US employees chose to join the union.
But according to the National Labor Relations Commission, a federal agency, more than a dozen federal officials have found that Starbucks violated labor laws in responding to unions. An administrative judge has ruled that Starbucks committed “serious and widespread misconduct” in trying to prevent unionization in some of its stores.
Maggie Carter, a barista at the Knoxville, Tenn., store that was the first Starbucks in the South to establish a union, told ABC News that unions give workers the best opportunity to improve their workplace.
Meanwhile, at least 292 of the approximately 9,000 Starbucks stores in the United States voted to form a union.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.