Former Starbucks chief executive, Howard Schultz, forcefully defended the company’s response to union organizing at a Senate hearing.
at a Wednesday Senate hearing, rejecting judges’ and prosecutors’ accusations that the coffee chain repeatedly violated labor laws.
Schultz testified that his own involvement in union-related activities during his recent stint as interim chief executive was “de minimis,” and that he had never been involved in discussions about terminating workers who were part of union drives.Schultz bristled at Sanders’ repeated references to him as a billionaire, which he said were unfair. “I came from nothing,” he said. “Yes, I have billions of dollars — I earned it. No one gave it to me. And I have shared it” with workers.
The National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel issued a complaint last year alleging Schultz’s comments to a worker in a meeting constituted an illegal threat. The worker told Bloomberg News that Schultz asked: “If you hate Starbucks so much why don’t you go work somewhere else?” Starbucks’ home-state senator, Patty Murray , joined in the grilling, saying she has been “disappointed” hearing employees’ “really troubling reports” about anti-union conduct.
“In order to combat this increase in union organizing, corporations have engaged in an unprecedented level of illegal union-busting activities,” he said. “Over the past 18 months, Starbucks has waged the most aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign in the modern history of our country. That union-busting campaign has been led by Howard Schultz.”The walkouts are timed to coincide with Starbucks’ Red Cup Day, when the company gives free reusable cups to customers who order a holiday drink.
The hearing has drawn unusual levels of attention. Over 100 people, including Starbucks employees there to support the union or the company leadership, lined the halls waiting to enter the hearing an hour before it was scheduled to start.
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