A Senate committee headed by Bernie Sanders of Vermont released a report late Sunday aimed at debunking Starbucks’ narrative that it supports workers’ rights and has not committed large-scale violations of U.S. labor law — claims that former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz will likely repeat when he testifies before the panel later this week.
Since late 2021, when Buffalo workers voted to form the company’s first union in the U.S. and set off a movement that quickly swept the country, “Starbucks has adopted an aggressively anti-union stance that is reflected in Schultz’s public statements, the company’s communications to workers, and its scorched-earth approach to blocking unionization activity,” the new report states.
“Though the coffee giant claims they are a ‘progressive’ company, there is mounting evidence that the $113 billion-dollar company’s anti-union efforts include a pattern of flagrant violations of federal labor law,” the report continues. “The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has filed over 80 complaints against Starbucks for violating federal labor law and there have been over 500 unfair labor practice charges lodged against this company. These violations include the illegal firing of more than a dozen Starbucks workers for ‘the crime’ of exercising their right to form a union and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.”
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee’s majority staff report was published ahead of Schultz’s planned testimony on Wednesday, an appearance that the billionaire — who has led Starbucks’ aggressive union-busting campaign — resisted for weeks before finally relenting earlier this month under threat of subpoena.
The report also comes days after Starbucks workers across the country went on strike and outlined their demands — including a starting hourly wage of $20, guaranteed hours for full-time workers, and 100% employer-covered healthcare — ahead of the company’s Thursday shareholder meeting, the first under new CEO Laxman Narasimhan.
While Starbucks says it “respects employees’ right to organize,” the HELP Committee report notes, the company in practice has “taken a firmly anti-union position” and has shown it is “willing to do whatever it takes to stop workers from organizing” by firing dozens of union leaders, surveilling and punishing pro-union employees, and promising better benefits for non-union locations.
“NLRB judges have found that Starbucks broke the law 130 times across six states since workers began organizing in fall 2021,” the HELP report states. “The NLRB is also currently taking Starbucks to trial in 70 additional cases.”
The report goes on to challenge Starbucks’ claim that it is bargaining in good faith with workers who have voted to join Workers United. None of the nearly 300 locations that have made the choice to unionize since December 2021 have secured a first contract.
“It has been over 450 days since the first Starbucks stores voted to form a union. Starbucks has not taken any meaningful steps to make progress toward actually negotiating a contract in that time period,” the report observes. “On November 30, 2022, the NLRB found that Starbucks has unlawfully refused to recognize and bargain with the union at its Reserve Roastery Store in Seattle following an election in May 2022. Starbucks has appealed the NLRB’s decision to the Ninth Circuit.”
The committee’s analysis — which also takes on the company’s claim that it is a “model employer” and that the unionization push does not reflect the desires of the majority of its workforce — concludes that “Starbucks has engaged in the most significant union-busting campaign in modern history.”
“Just because Starbucks is a $113 billion company and Howard Schultz is a billionaire with a net worth of $3.7 billion does not mean that they are above the law,” the report says. “They must be held accountable for creating a culture that allows widespread violations of federal labor law in an effort to stop workers from exercising their constitutional right to organize.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.