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More than two years into a campaign that has unionized more than 350 Starbucks stores, the company faces growing pressure from union officials and activists who say it has unlawfully retaliated against workers and resisted negotiations. contractual.
Starbucks, which denies violating labor laws, has responded with mixed signals about its willingness to collaborate with the union. The company Announced Early last month, it sought to restart negotiations at unionized stores, only one of which has held bargaining sessions over the past six months. However, the company keep resisting A union is demanding that some workers be allowed to participate in bargaining sessions remotely to allow more people to participate.
Starbucks has taken steps to address worker complaints about overwork in stores. But he and the union have sued each other in a dispute that arose from social media posts about the war in Gaza.
TO report about Starbucks labor practices, prompted by a shareholders vote and released last month, criticized the company for lack of commitments He enforced union activity, although he found “no evidence of an ‘anti-union manual’.”
“There are green shoots of promising behavior right now,” said Jonas Kron, chief advancement officer at Trillium Asset Management, which makes investments to advance environmental, social and governance goals and which in September had a roughly $31 million stake in Starbucks. But, he added, there is also “consistent troubling behavior.”
The persistence of the organizational effort is a source of pressure on the company. The union campaign marked in the second half of 2022, as election filings fell to about 12 per month on average from more than 50 per month in the first half of the year. Monthly filings increased last year and averaged about 20 from October to December.
Other challenges are more recent. In late November, a coalition of unions that includes the parent company of Workers United, which represents Starbucks workers, nominated three candidates for positions on the company’s board of directors.
The coalition, known as the Center for Strategic Organizing, is an investor in the company and cited “potentially irreversible damage” to the Starbucks brand as a result of anti-union actions. He noted that the National Labor Relations Board had filed dozens of complaints against the company linked to hundreds of allegations of illegal behavior, including failure to bargain in good faith.
Starbucks denies the allegations, observing which has proposed more than 500 bargaining sessions with the union, and the cases are still in litigation. The company have saying will review proposed board candidates and is “committed to constructive dialogue.”
Board fight experts said the campaign seemed serious. All three candidates were senior government officials, largely under Democratic presidents, and the coalition has retained prominent signatures to help in the fight.
“I think this is not a publicity stunt,” said Kai Liekefett, a partner at Sidley Austin who specializes in defending boards of directors against shareholder campaigns. “They’ve hired very sophisticated advisors.”
Liekefett said a vote at Starbucks’ last shareholder meeting, in which investors backed a resolution that led the company to commission the assessment of its respect for labor rights, suggested that investors might be open to a board challenge linked to labor issues.
At the same time, grassroots actions by union supporters have sought to impose a price on board members and the company for their stance toward unions.
students in Georgetown University, Boston University and the University of California, Los Angeles, have undertaken campaigns to remove Starbucks stores from their campuses. Union supporters disrupted a forum at UCLA featuring Starbucks board member Andrew Campion to boo him for “tolerating the injustices faced by Starbucks workers.”
After a petition from union members in November, a nonprofit group terminated a grant naming Mellody Hobson, the president of Starbucks, one of its “25 Mentors of the Year.”
The nonprofit group Step Up, which focusing on mentoring teenage girls and young women, said Ms Hobson’s achievements identified her as a strong mentor, but that “the union’s disclosure letter to Step Up shed light on other concerns”. Hobson declined to comment. Starbucks declined to comment on the campus campaigns and attacks on board members.
Starbucks recently announced a change that union members had long pushed for: making it easier for workers to temporarily block orders placed via mobile phones when they face operational challenges, such as staff shortages. The Union raised the problem during a recent strike at dozens of stores.
The company said workers two weeks after the strike that shift supervisors, who are union members, and managers could soon pause mobile ordering using an iPad app. Starbucks said it had not changed its policy of suspending mobile ordering, a major source of revenue, and that shift supervisors still needed approval from managers to do so. The company said it was simply adding technology to help stores pause orders more efficiently and that the change had been in the works for months.
On other occasions, the company has been more confrontational with the union. Shortly after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, the union’s official account on X featured a message expressing “Solidarity with Palestine!” Above, a photograph that appeared to show a bulldozer that had forced open a fence between Israel and Gaza.
Starbucks criticized the union for “advocating violence in the Middle East” and then sued the union for trademark infringement, arguing that the union’s statements harmed Starbucks because many people confuse the union with the company. The company said the lawsuit was motivated by a desire to ensure the safety of its employees, who were threatened by angry members of the public.
The union sued for defamation, saying the “solidarity” post was unauthorized, had been quickly removed and that no reasonable person could conclude that the union supported terrorism.
Laxman Narasimhan, who became CEO in March, has yet to chart a clear course on union issues, although he is more inclined to be conciliatory than his predecessor, Howard Schultz, according to two former Starbucks corporate employees familiar with union thinking. men. Mr. Schultz seemed to view the union as a personal affrontthe former employees said, and worked to deactivate support for it.
Starbucks declined to comment on any difference in approach between the current and former CEOs. Schultz, who left Starbucks’ board of directors in September, did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.
In recent weeks, Narasimhan appears to have grown tired of the controversies that followed the union’s release and the company’s lawsuit, as groups and activists sympathetic to Israelis and Palestinians Both have announced boycotts of Starbucks.
in a letter To employees on December 19, the CEO expressed concern about the “escalation of protests” linked to global conflicts and noted that many stores had been vandalized.
“We see protesters influenced by the misrepresentation on social media of what we stand for,” he said, adding: “Our position is clear. We defend humanity.”
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