WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders and Howard Schultz will square off Wednesday in a highly anticipated hearing about the company’s labor practices, which the former Starbucks CEO plans to defend against criticism.
Schultz is slated to testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which is chaired by Sanders, I-Vt., in a hearing unsubtly titled, “No Company is Above the Law: The Need to End Illegal Union Busting at Starbucks.”
It comes after weeks of clashes between the Sanders-led panel and Starbucks, which unsuccessfully urged the panel to hear testimony from someone other than Schultz, who officially exited the company on March 20. Sanders refused and Schultz eventually agreed to testify under threat of subpoena.
The hearing, scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. ET, will feature a defense of Starbucks labor practices from Schultz and testimony from a Starbucks barista, a former Starbucks worker and other witnesses.
“I’m hoping that Mr. Schultz will acknowledge that it’s wrong for a large, multinational corporation to break the federal labor law and deny their workers the right to organize,” Sanders said in a brief interview. “And I hope he will tell the committee that he is in fact going to sit down, or have his staff sit down, and finally negotiate the first contract for Starbucks workers.”
Schultz may find a warmer reception from the Republicans on the committee, including Ranking Member Bill Cassidy, R-La., who said earlier he would not support a subpoena to compel Schultz to testify.
Schultz will tell lawmakers that the company “has engaged in good faith bargaining” and “has complied with the National Labor Relations Act,” according to written testimony shared with NBC News.
“Starbucks respects the right of all partners to make their own decisions about union representation, and Starbucks is committed to engaging in good faith collective bargaining for each store that has a union. I embrace these commitments,” Schultz will say. (Starbucks uses the term “partners” to refer to its employees).
He will add that Starbucks has “been arranging more than 350 bargaining sessions involving more than 200 sets of negotiations — each relating to a single store — and Starbucks representatives have been physically present at more than 85 sets of negotiations.”
“However, union representatives have improperly demanded multi-store negotiations, delayed or refused to attend meetings and insisted on unlawful preconditions such as ‘virtual’ bargaining and participation by outside observers, among other things,” the former CEO will say, according to the prepared remarks.
Sanders, a two-time Democratic presidential primary runner-up who has built a brand as a champion of labor unions, has taken a keen interest in Starbucks and Schultz.
A recent report by Democratic majority staff on the HELP Committee declared: “Under Schultz’s leadership, Starbucks has become the most aggressive union-busting company in America.”
It said the National Labor Relations Board “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.”
A Sanders communications aide said the report was released to counter claims from the company so that viewers “don’t get blended into a Frappuccino by Starbucks’ PR team.”
Gianna Reeve, a Starbucks worker in Buffalo, New York, and organizing member of Starbucks Workers United, said in a statement that the union hopes the hearing “exposes Starbucks’ illegal union-busting campaign and exposes the truth about how Starbucks really treats their workers.” Reeve added that “you can’t be a progressive company and be anti-union.”
As part of his prepared testimony, Schultz will also tell senators that “it is clear that prior to my return last April the company had lost its way on many levels.”
“Under former leadership, the dangerous influence of Wall Street short-termism that I had always rejected had found its way into the company. … Focusing on Wall Street short-term targets as a priority, and not our people and customers, is antithetical to our history and breaks the equation that built Starbucks,” he plans to say. “As I watched the company over the last few years after I stepped away, it became clear to me that Starbucks had lost sight of what drove the company’s success — making our partners and customers proud — and that the company’s culture and its future were at significant risk. Starbucks is addressing those shortcomings.”
