Over the past 18 months, Starbucks has waged the most aggressive and
illegal union busting campaign in the modern history of our country.
That union busting campaign has been led by Howard Schultz,
the multibillionaire founder and director of Starbucks,
who is with us this morning only under the threat of subpoena.
>> I love that salt coming from Senator Bernie Sanders,
who now chairs the powerful Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee.
And he not only threatened to subpoena Howard Schultz, the now former CEO for
Starbucks, but after issuing that subpoena threat, Howard Schultz is like,
okay, I guess I'll go ahead and testify in this hearing.
He had no choice.
He did show up, the hearing took place today, and it really was incredible.
So before we get to some of the highlights from this hearing, I think it's
important to back up and remember what the union busting tactics were.
And this of course happened in response to hundreds of Starbucks stores
across the nation, organizing and voting to unionize and guess what?
Nearly 300 of them voted in favor.
So, 360 stores in total have held union elections and
they've been met with aggression from their employer, Starbucks.
Now, 83% of those elections have resulted in a union victory.
What is insane is that even though it has been now a few years since
the first store voted in favor of unionizing, Starbucks has yet
to sign a single contract with a single unionized store.
In fact, instead of negotiating in good faith,
even though Howard Schultz would lie up and down and
claim that they have been trying to negotiate in good faith, they haven't.
What they've really done is try to bust the union or any unionization effort.
So Bernie goes on to say that the National Labor Relations Board has filed
over 80 complaints against Starbucks over violations of federal labor laws,
but it doesn't stop there.
There have been over 500 unfair
labor practice charges lodged against the company.
In addition to that, federal judges, federal judges, so
this is not like, they've been accused but there hasn't been an investigation,
we don't know if they're guilty, no.
Federal judges have found that Starbucks broke the law 130 times across six states
since the workers started organizing to form unions in the fall of 2021.
And some of those charges include illegally firing 12 Starbucks workers for
attempting to organize their workplace.
Now, with all of that context in mind,
let's hear a little more from Bernie Sanders.
>> Just a few weeks ago on March 1st,
an administrative law judge found Starbucks guilty of quote,
egregious and widespread misconduct, end quote, which showed, quote,
a general disregard for the employees' fundamental rights, end quote.
In a 220 page ruling, this judge found that Starbucks illegally retaliated
against employees for unionizing, promised improved pay and benefits,
if workers rejected the union, conducted illegal surveillance of pro-union workers,
refused to hire prospective employees who supported the union, relocated
union organizers to new stores, and overstaffed stores ahead of union votes.
All clear violations of federal labor law.
>> Look, I'm only speaking for myself when I say this,
I know people like to think of TYT as a monolith, we're not a monolith.
Everyone has differences of opinion.
Sometimes Cenk can get a little salty when it comes to Bernie because he wants to see
Bernie fight harder.
But in my mind, there is literally no one in Congress, not a single person
except for Bernie Sanders who has consistently fought on behalf of workers
in America throughout his entire career, from the very beginning.
Bernie Sanders is the real deal.
You might not be in favor of his style,
maybe you want him to be more aggressive, I hear you on that.
I personally also enjoy aggressive tactics.
But in regard to what he's doing with this incredibly important leadership position,
I couldn't be prouder to be a major supporter of Bernie Sanders, because what
he's up to makes it abundantly clear that his top priority is the American worker.
And that is so rare to see in a political landscape where corruption is basically on
the minds of everyone, everyone's thinking about their corporate donors, everyone's
thinking about doing right by the corporations that fund their campaigns.
Bernie Sanders though, he's different [LAUGH].
And even though he's been a politician for decades,
even though he exists in the system where all the incentives are for
you to do the wrong thing, he's resisted those incentives and he's actually
looking out for what the workers' best interests are and I love to see it.
With that said, he mentioned what
the federal judges had found Starbucks to be guilty of.
He also mentioned a little later that federal judges ordered
Starbucks to reinstate seven workers who were legally fired,
reopen a pro-union Buffalo New York store that was illegally shut down and also pay
reasonable consequential damages to more than two dozen Starbucks workers whose
rights were violated due to the union busting tax that were used by Starbucks.
Now, it's also important that Bernie laid out all the labor violations that
Starbucks committed based on these federal judges in their rulings because Schultz
would go on to basically lie about it during the rest of the hearing.
But here are some more details you should know about before we
get to some fun video.
Noting that the first group of Starbucks workers to win union elections
have been waiting more than 460 days to negotiate a first contract,
Sanders pressed Schultz to promise that Starbucks would exchange proposals
within the union or with the union within 14 days of the hearing.
Schultz declined to make any such promise.
He did say the company would continue to bargain in good faith in
face-to-face sessions but not in sessions streamed on Zoom
as demanded by the union, citing safety and privacy concerns.
What are the safety concerns when you're doing a meeting on Zoom?
You're worried your Internet might drop off and
you might have difficulty reconnecting.
What safety concerns?
What are you talking about?
No, they don't wanna negotiate in good faith, and
they're worried that if they hold these negotiations online via Zoom,
someone might record it and leak it to the press and make it abundantly clear to
the American people that the employers here, Starbucks, doesn't
actually give a damn about the workers and is not negotiating in good faith.
But with that said at one point, Howard Schultz uses the fact that
the federal government has failed to increase the federal minimum wage.
And I have no problem criticizing the federal government for that,
but I do have a problem with it in this context, and after we watch the video,
I'll explain why.
>> Today baristas in our stores earn on average $17.50.
Respectfully, that's more than the minimum wage of every senator that's
represented a state on this committee, including, respectfully,
chairman Sanders, where the minimum wage in Vermont is 13.18, we're at 17.50.
>> So let me get this straight, corporate America bribes politicians
to keep the federal minimum wage at the pathetic $7.25 level that it's at today.
And then corporate America has one of their representatives,
Howard Schultz in this case, use that fact against policy makers and lawmakers.
Now, Bernie Sanders is not responsible for state legislation in Vermont.
He's a United States senator.
And to be sure he's been one of the biggest warriors in trying to increase
wages for Americans in trying to increase the federal minimum wage for
American workers.
So it was a weird attempt to dunk on Bernie Sanders.
But we know how this game is played Schultz.
We know how corporate America bribes politicians to avoid ever having to
increase wages.
But one of the exceptions is Senator Bernie Sanders.
We all know that, but good try, good try.
Now, while it was clear that Bernie was looking out for
workers in the context of this hearing, that wasn't really the case for
the Republican Party, which shouldn't be surprising for anyone.
Let's actually start with Mitt Romney, who argued that senators like
Bernie are calling for the hearing because they're corrupt.
>> I also think it's rich to not recognize the extraordinary conflict of interest we
have, which is our Democratic colleagues overwhelmingly get their campaign funds
from unions, and therefore would like to find every possible way to extend unions
even if an enterprise feels that it's in their best interest to pursue a different
course.
>> Okay, all right.
I mean, come on, how rich is that?
Mitt Romney, are these democratic lawmakers corrupt, which,
by the way, a lot of them are, they absolutely are.
But to bring up unions and their contributions to various
campaigns while pretending like we don't know about
the corporate capture of our legislature is insane.
In fact, why don't I just bring that up now?
Because I did look into how much Starbucks spent on lobbying in 2022 alone for
the midterm elections alone.
How much did they spend on lobbying?
Would you look at that according to open secrets,
$1,170,000 in just one election cycle alone.
But of course, Mitt Romney didn't bring that up.
Instead, he brought up the campaign contributions that some members of
congress take from unions.
What do you expect unions to do?
To just sit back and allow corporate America to do all the bribing,
which you do a comparison.
Corporate America has got them beat considerably in terms of the dollar
amount.
But with that said, I do wanna go to one more graph also from open secrets.
This one shows annual lobbying by Starbucks.
And so you can see in 2013 there was quite a spike in lobbying.
But if you look at the last several years,
the amount that they spent on lobbying has gone up consistently.
And I would venture to say that the increase in the dollar amount that
they're willing to spend on lobbying might have something to do
with the increased interest that their workers have in unionizing their stores.
But the most embarrassing person in this entire event, in my opinion was Rand Paul.
So let's go to his clip.
Get a load of this.
>> Ayn Rand, Howard Roark points out the ingratitude that man has for
the entrepreneur, the creator.
Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire.
He was probably burnt at the stake he taught the others to light.
But he left them a gift that had not been conceived,
and he lifted darkness from the face of the earth.
Now, Starbucks didn't exactly discover fire, but Starbucks did somehow
somewhere discover in the depths of man's soul that he would pay as much for
a double mocha latte as he once did for a week's worth of coffee.
Convincing the public to buy very expensive coffee is not the discovery of
fire but still it deserves respect.
Instead, Congress convenes today not to praise Starbucks but to bury them.
The hearing today is convened to attack a private company or its success.
If the goal is to destroy the goose that laid the golden egg, then by all means,
this hearing is a good beginning.
For me I see the fabulous success of Starbucks, and I understand that luxury,
the luxury to spend an extraordinary amount of money for
a cup of coffee is a testament to capitalism.
It's a testament to the fact that we have enough money that we can do that.
>> Imagine sitting there and saying with a straight face,
Starbucks is actually a hero, but a hero corporation for
fleecing the American people for their crappy specialty coffee drinks.
Shouldn't we celebrate that?
Shouldn't we celebrate that they somehow convinced Americans to overpay for coffee?
I mean, these are the people that we should uplift.
These are the companies we should uplift, who cares about the workers?
Who cares about the workers?
And by the way,
if that's genuinely his take, if his take is no, Starbucks is awesome.
I mean, yeah, they didn't create fire but close.
I mean, they are so persuasive in getting people to
buy their crappy coffee that we should celebrate them.
Okay, great, who makes the coffee?
Who makes the specialty drinks?
What generates the revenue at Starbucks?
Is it Howard Schultz or is it the workers who actually make the coffee drinks,
the tea drinks, all of the products that they sell in their stores?
Who does that?
It's the workers, and that gets left out of the equation in every argument
I hear from the antilabor, anti-union Republicans.
And what I loved about the entire hearing is every time a Republican had their turn
to speak and ask questions, I believe in people's right to organize.
I mean, if workers wanna organize, I have no problem with that.
I have no problem with that.
But also I'm gonna provide cover for Starbucks as it is busting unions and
firing workers if they get any inkling that those workers are trying to
organize their workplace.
I mean, it's so pathetic and quoting Ayn Rand.
I mean, they're caricatures, these are caricatures of Republicans.
I mean, they really do fit the stereotypes.
It's incredible stuff.
But finally, I wanna go to Senator Tina Smith
because she had an exchange with Schultz that really stood out to me,
because billionaires love being billionaires, but
they don't like it when people call them out on being billionaires.
And Tina Smith had mentioned Howard Schultz's fabulous wealth.
He got a little testy about it.
Let's watch.
>> I thought my entire life was based on the achievement of the American dream.
Yes, I have billions of dollars, I earned it, no one gave it to me.
>> You earned it how, Howard Schultz?
You earned it how?
And that's really the mentality that's so incredibly frustrating because in their
minds, they're successful and they're fabulously wealthy because they earned it.
It's their hard work that made that happen.
But I don't think I'm saying anything controversial when I point to the fact
that he would have nothing if it weren't for the workers in all these stores,
all across the country, all across the world by the way, who do the hard work,
who deal with the customers, who deal with the I don't like this,
you didn't make it right, make it again.
All of the trials and tribulations that come along with being a barista,
which I also personally experienced, not at Starbucks, but at coffee bean and
tea leaf.
It is an incredibly difficult job.
It is a job that deserves respect, a job that deserves a livable wage,
good benefits, and more importantly,
it's the kind of work that honestly deserves respect for
management and from the executives.
Because for all the bragging that Howard Schultz wants to do about his hard work
and how he earned it, he wouldn't have a damn thing if it weren't for the workers.
And if they want to organize, if they wanna sit at the table,
if they wanna have any ability to negotiate their working conditions and
their wages, they should have that right.
And that's what Bernie Sanders is trying to protect.
That's what Bernie Sanders is trying to hold Howard Schultz and
the executives at Starbucks accountable for because of their union busting tactics
ever since these stores started to organize.
Finally, I'm gonna read one more graphic.
Interrupted by Sanders telling him his time had run out,
Schultz managed to add it's your moniker constantly.
It's unfair, meaning being referred to as a billionaire.
Stop calling me a billionaire, it's unfair.
Why is it unfair?
I thought you earned it.
I thought you're proud of it.
The thing is citing his insane wealth is a reminder of
the inequality that American workers are dealing with today.
Because when you see these workers lose their livelihoods over wanting to organize
their workplace, and then you see the compensation for
the executives at Starbucks, you'll understand why it's important to organize
your workplace, why it's important to have a seat at the table, and
why this inequality is crushing the vast majority of Americans across the country.
If it weren't for Bernie Sanders, we'd never hear about these issues in Congress.
So thank you to Senator Sanders for holding this hearing.
I hope he does a lot more.