Hundreds of Starbucks workers and supporters from other unions rallied in front of Starbucks corporate headquarters at First Avenue and Lander Street on March 22.
Unionized employees walked out in a one-day strike at other Starbucks locations in Seattle. Similar strikes took place in more than a hundred Starbucks stores in 40 US cities.
The rally and strike actions coincided with Starbucks' annual shareholders meeting. Organizers said they hoped to convince newly installed Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan to take a more conciliatory approach to Starbucks Workers United (SBWU), the union representing a growing number of Starbucks employees.
Starbucks founder and three-time CEO Howard Schultz stepped down from his post once again just before the shareholders meeting, which ratified Narasimhan's appointment to the top spot. Schultz took the helm of the coffee megacorporation last year, in a vain attempt to stave off the SBWU's unionization campaign. He was CEO from 1986 to 2000, from 2008 to 2017, and again from March 2022 to March 2023.
Schultz utterly failed to stem the union tide. When he resumed the CEO mantle last year, fewer than a hundred stores were unionized. Today more than three hundred have SBWU unions, and the applications for union elections are so numerous that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is reportedly having trouble processing them all.
"Starbucks baristas like me are the ones who keep our stores running. We remember our customers' regular orders, make the lattes, clean up spills, and are often the bright spot of our customers' days," Sarah Pappin, a Seattle Starbucks worker, said in a prepared statement.
"Starbucks should respect our right to organize and meet us at the bargaining table."
The SBWU has charged Starbucks with a number of federal labor law violations, including bad-faith bargaining. In many cases, Starbucks attorneys show up to bargaining sessions, make an initial presentation, and then disappear before SBWU bargainers can respond, the union has charged.
The NLRB has found Starbucks guilty of many violations of US labor law, most charges relating to illegal intimidation and retaliation against union activists. The NLRB's general counsel said on March 27 that Starbucks had violated federal law by refusing to bargain with the SBWU via Zoom.
In related news, now-former CEO Schultz testified before the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee on March 29. Committee chair Bernie Sanders has been critical of Starbucks' attempts to stifle union organizing.
"While Howard Schultz is a multibillionaire who runs a very profitable multinational corporation, he must understand that he and his company are not above the law," Sanders said earlier this month.
Schultz was invited to testify before the HELP Committee but initially resisted, only agreeing after Sanders suggested he might be compelled by subpoena to come to a hearing.