Starbucks condemned for ‘intimidation’ of US union organizers

theguardian.com:

Starbucks is under fire over the company’s response to unionization efforts as senator Bernie Sanders threatens to call its chief executive before his committee on alleged labor violations and staff petition for it to end “intimidation” of organizers.

Sanders, chairman of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions (Help) committee, announced on Wednesday that the committee will be voting on whether to issue a subpoena to compel Starbucks chief Howard Schultz to testify about Starbuck’s federal labor law violations, and to authorize a committee investigation into labor-law violations committed by major corporations.

“For nearly a year, I and many of my colleagues in the Senate have repeatedly asked Mr Schultz to respect the constitutional right of workers at Starbucks to form a union and to stop violating federal labor laws,” Sanders said in a press release confirming the 8 March vote.

“Mr Schultz has failed to respond to those requests. He has denied meeting and document requests, skirted congressional oversight attempts, and refused to answer any of the serious questions we have asked. Unfortunately, Mr Schultz has given us no choice but to subpoena him.”

The move came after 44 employees at Starbucks headquarters in Seattle and 22 additional anonymous employees signed on to a petition calling on the company to reverse a return-to-office mandate and “to commit to a policy of neutrality and respect federal labor laws by agreeing to follow fair election principles, and allow store partners, whether pro- or anti-union, to decide for themselves, free from fear, coercion, and intimidation.”

According to Starbucks Workers United, over 200 Starbucks workers have been fired in retaliation for organizing. The National Labor