Starbucks is one of the worst union-busters in the country
By Philip Mattera, director of the Corporate Research Project for the Dirt Diggers Digest
Schultz number one was the typical anti-union corporate
executive. Despite the vast number of unfair labor practice charges that have
been filed by Starbucks workers, many of which have been sustained by NLRB
administrative law judges, he insisted the company has done nothing wrong.
Accused of failing to bargain in good faith at the locations where employees
have voted for representation, he blamed the union.
While giving gave lip service to the idea that workers have a right to seek union representation, Schultz added that “the company has a right to express a preference.”
Not only does such a right not exist, but
Starbucks has, as fired activist Jaysin Saxton testified at the hearing, gone
far beyond stating its opinion. It stands accused of using many classic
union-busting tactics as well as new ones such as refusing to allow credit card
tipping at pro-union locations.
The other Howard Schultz tried to portray himself as a
model employer, insisting that Starbucks offers much better pay and benefits
than its competitors in the retail sector. Even if there is some truth in this,
it is not saying much that you treat your workforce a bit better than Walmart
and McDonald’s.
This Schultz argued that unionization might be appropriate at companies that treat their workers unfairly, but not at a supposedly enlightened one like Starbucks. What he could not seem to comprehend is that as much as the company claims to value and respect its green-aproned “partners,” they may want to relate to management on a more equal footing.
If Starbucks really believed in employee empowerment, it
would have adopted a neutral stance toward unionization, as Microsoft did in
response to the union push at Activision Blizzard. Instead, it has resorted to
retrograde anti-union practices that strengthen the case for collective bargaining.
This approach throws into question the idea that
Starbucks is a high-road company. Despite its carefully cultivated reputation,
there have long been signs of questionable policies at the coffee chain. Some
of these can be seen in the Starbucks
entries in Violation Tracker, which documents more than $50
million in penalties over the past two decades. Almost all of these are
employment-related.
For example: in 2013 the company agreed to pay $3 million to settle litigation alleging it denied baristas their right under California law to take uninterrupted meal breaks.
Starbucks has paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits accusing it of improperly classifying employees such as assistant store managers as exempt from overtime pay.
In 2019 the company
paid $176,000 to
state and local agencies in New York to settle allegations it improperly
penalized employees who could not find a substitute when they needed to take a
sick day.
Long-standing problems such as these, along with its more
recent repressive practices, suggest that Starbucks may not be such a paragon
of corporate virtue after all. In fact, it may very well be one of those unfair
employers that even Howard Schultz admits should be unionized.
