Starbucks’ Ex-CEO Urges Need to Fix Missteps Amid Union Bid

(Bloomberg) -- Starbucks Corp.’s former Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz, who spoke to New York workers Saturday slated to vote on unionization, said the coffee chain needs to fix any missteps that have led to the latest effort by employees. 

Pro-union workers won a key victory last week when the National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling allowing store-by-store unionization votes at the three sites. If a majority of eligible employees at even one of those sites votes to unionize, it would be the first such labor foothold among the chain’s thousands of corporate-run stores. The agency is slated to mail ballots to employees on Wednesday.

“I see the changes, commitments and engagement happening,” Schultz said in a letter to employees in conjunction with his meeting with workers in Buffalo, New York, with the aim to hold such forums with employees across the country. “We must remember to earn success and trust each day, taking accountability and correcting when there are missteps.”

The letter posted on its blog confirmed an earlier report by Bloomberg that the billionaire was meeting workers in New York. Stores closed early so that employees can participate, according to Workers United, the Service Employees International Union affiliate that workers at three Buffalo-area stores have petitioned to join.

“No partner has ever needed to have a representative seek to obtain things we all have as partners at Starbucks,” said Schultz, the company’s chairman emeritus and largest individual shareholder. “And I am saddened and concerned to hear anyone thinks that is needed now.”

A Starbucks spokesperson earlier declined to comment on the event.

Schultz hewed closely to the same messages in his letter, according to Gianna Reeve, a pro-union employee who attended the event. Reeve said he was escorted away after the speech when she asked him if he would support principles proposed by the union to restrict union-busting. 

Reeve, a shift supervisor at one of the stores slated to vote on unionization, said she found it “disrespectful” that employees weren’t given the opportunity to speak or question Schultz at the “partner experience” event.

Pro-union employees have alleged in recent weeks that the company deployed out-of-town managers to visit their stores and try to dissuade them from unionizing. The employees said they were pressured to attend meetings in which company representatives warned that organizing could lead to the loss of some benefits. 

Starbucks has said that it’s not uncommon for higher-ups to visit local stores, and that while it expects employees to attend its meetings, it doesn’t punish them if they refuse.

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