*** ADVISORY, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2023 ****** SBWU SENATE HELP COMMITTEE HEARING ***
Starbucks Workers to Testify Before Senate HELP Committee as Scrutiny of Coffee Giant’s Illegal Union-Busting Campaign Intensifies
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Scores of baristas to travel to DC hearing where former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz will be on the hot seat
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, March 29, 2023
CONTACT: Casey Moore, starbucksmedia@workers-united.org, 302-985-1417
Washington D.C. – Today, March 29, Maggie Carter and Jaysin Saxton – two Starbucks workers who faced retaliation for organizing with Starbucks Workers United – will testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP), demanding Congress hold the coffee giant accountable for its illegal union-busting campaign.
Scores of Starbucks workers from across the country will travel to Washington D.C. to attend the hearing, where former CEO Howard Schultz will be forced to answer for the company’s illegal retaliation against workers who joined together to organize a union in their stores. Schultz only agreed to testify under threat of subpoena.
Carter is a Knoxville, Tennessee Starbucks worker and single mother who faced repeated threats, intimidation and other retaliation for leading the organizing drive in her store. Saxton is a veteran and father who was terminated after leading the union drive at a Starbucks store in Augusta, Georgia. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint against Starbucks alleging Saxton’s termination was illegal retaliation to discourage others from organizing. Both workers will share their stories about the retaliation they faced for organizing, their demands for Starbucks, and what they hope to see under new CEO Laxman Narasinham’s leadership.
The hearing comes the week after thousands of baristas went on strike in scores of cities nationwide and held a major protest outside the company’s headquarters to demand basic rights like livable wages with consistent scheduling, safe and respectful workplaces, and the right to organize free from fear and intimidation.
WHO: 50+ Starbucks workers from across the United States, including Jaysin Saxton and Maggie Carter, who will testify before the Senate HELP Committee.
WHAT: HELP Committee hearing - No Company is Above the Law: The Need to End Illegal Union Busting at Starbucks.
WHEN: Wednesday, March 29, 2023 at 10:00 AM ET
WHERE: G50 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Live-streamed HERE
Trouble Brewing for Starbucks
The upcoming Senate HELP Committee hearing and last week’s strike and protest are the culmination of years of organizing efforts. Since December 2021, more than 7,000 Starbucks workers have organized over 280 stores, demanding Starbucks respect workers’ fundamental right to organize and bargain a fair contract with their workers.
In this same time period, regional offices of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have issued more than 80 official complaints against Starbucks, prosecuting the company for over 1,400 specific alleged violations of federal labor law, including accusations that former CEO Howard Schultz personally threatened a worker who expressed support for organizing. To date, NLRB Administrative Law Judges have issued nine decisions, eight of which collectively found that the company has committed 130 violations, including illegally monitoring and firing organizers, calling the police on workers, and outright closing a store that recently attempted to organize.
An administrative law Judge in New York ruled that Starbucks committed "egregious and widespread" violations of federal labor law in a 200+ page ruling outlining the company's scorched-earth anti-union campaign.
Two weeks ago, U.S. Senator Cory Booker and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) sent a letter to Schultz lambasting the company’s “blatant anti-union behavior” and calling on him to bargain in good faith with his workers.
Starbucks Workers United earlier this month sent a letter to shareholders urging them to vote for a third-party assessment of the company’s commitment to uphold workers rights, arguing Starbucks’ anti-union actions run counter to the company’s International Labour Organization commitments. Two proxy advisory firms, International Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, have already recommended Starbucks shareholders vote in favor of the proposal from Trillium Asset Management, the New York City Pension Funds and other investors.
And last month, Starbucks baristas filed dozens of complaints with New York City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, alleging violations of the city’s Fair Workweek law.
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