Starbucks interim CEO Howard Schultz reportedly criticized a coffee chain barista who was campaigning for unions at one of the company’s California locations, telling the worker, “If you hate Starbucks so much, why don’t you go elsewhere?”
Hall claimed the alleged meeting between Schultz and 25-year-old barista Madison Hall took place at Long Beach Airport on Friday.
Schultz, 68, has embarked on a tour of Starbucks locations across the country in an apparent effort to dissuade his employees from voting to join unions, according to the unions. More Perfect Union news site.
The Post has contacted Starbucks for comment.
The site said that Hall, who is leading an organizational campaign for workers at a Starbucks restaurant in Long Beach, was invited to a meeting with Schultz and about two dozen other employees from other stores in the area.
The meeting, which took place in a terminal building on the grounds of Long Beach Airport, began with a videotaped speech Schultz made a week earlier, in which the interim CEO of Starbucks Workers United, the group behind the organizing campaign, criticized the group.
Schultz, who recently reinstated the company’s presidency After former CEO Kevin Johnson The company, which the group dubbed “strangers trying to take our employees”, left as they launched an “assault” on the coffee chain.
He then appeared in person to participate in a question-and-answer session with the workers. Earlier last week, Schultz conducted similar give-and-take operations with employees in Seattle and Chicago.
A Starbucks spokesperson told More Perfect Union that “the focus of the meeting was around the ways we can improve the partner experience and the different ways we can co-create the future of Starbucks together.”
Hall Moore told Perfect Union that when he confronted Hall Schultz about reports that Starbucks was firing employees who had been active in the organization, interim CEO cut Hall.
“And then he got into a long talk about the history of Starbucks and how poor he was,” Hall said. “I said: You say you are not against unions, but on July 1, 2021, [Starbucks was] Hall said, referring to the National Labor Relations Board The judgment that found the company acted against him Two baristas were trying to join a guild.
“That was when he got super defensive and isolated me, saying, ‘We don’t talk about this,'” Hall claimed. He was very aggressive with me.”
“And then he went on another hustle, telling everyone that he was sorry that this was brought up, and that this is not what [the event] He was about, and his hand was pointing toward me like I was a problem,” Hall claimed.
A Starbucks spokesperson told the pro-union news site: “Howard and others in the room asked to get back on track and refocus on the whiteboard sessions and what they were working on together.”
Starbucks management suffered more setbacks over the weekend as six other stores — all in upstate New York — voted to form a union.
Two stores in Rochester and one in Buffalo – The city where the guild campaign first started Vote to form a union on Thursday noon. The next day, three more Ithaca stores approved the unions’ efforts. This brings the total number of Starbucks stores that have voted to form unions to 16.
Nationwide, there are more than 9,000 restaurants owned by the coffee shop chain.
The labor movement has achieved several important victories in recent times. Last week, workers in Amazon warehouse in Staten Island It voted for unionization – a first for a mega-retailer that has worked to stamp out similar efforts by organized workers.
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