Starbucks has just hired its top anti-union lawyer, and
while some might be celebrating this.
Because as we know, they've been engaging in union busting for quite some time.
There is a catch, she is being let go while receiving
a nearly $8 million severance package when she leaves.
By the way that $8 million severance package could have been used to just,
pay your employees better, create better working conditions for them.
The kind of stuff that the workers have been asking for, but,
okay, go ahead and provide the severance package.
And look, my guess is they let her go early from some sort of contract.
So maybe that's why they're trying to sweeten the deal, but nonetheless,
it shows you what the executives are willing to spend money on.
In lieu of taking care of the very people who generate revenue for
them in the first place, and those are the workers.
Now Starbucks general counsel Rachel Gonzalez, has been removed from her role,
the company said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
Gonzalez, who received more than $5.3 million in total compensation
from the coffee chain last year.
Has moved to an advisory position ahead of her May 20 departure,
so she'll still be associated with Starbucks.
But, it's in a slightly different role an advisory position,
Gonzalez was hired by 2018.
You will receive payments totaling nearly $8 million from Starbucks.
The company disclosed in a securities filing that Gonzalez, will be given a cash
payment in recognition of equity grants valued at more than 4.8 million.
As well as only 2.3 million in severance,
Starbucks has also agreed to give Gonzalez a prorated bonus.
You got to give her a bonus, and you got to give her the bonus and
it is a whopping $470,000 more than that.
470,500, for fiscal 2022 and then the 20,000 that she can use for
attorney fees related to the negotiation of her separation agreement.
A copy of which is appended to the filing.
So, Starbucks really spending their money where it counts.
>> Yeah. >> Union busting lawyers.
>> Exactly, and there's a lot of crazy numbers there and
I think a lot of people focus on the 8 million, that's certainly crazy.
I am actually perhaps most shocked by the smallest of all of those numbers,
the $20,000 for
lawyer's fees in the negotiation process for a separation agreement.
You're getting fired effectively, and getting handed $8
million shouldn't that be a pretty quick negotiation process?
If somebody handed that to me, it would not take a team of lawyers six months to
negotiate that, I would sign on the dotted line and you'd be done.
You can keep your $20,000 give me the 8 million I guess.
But yeah, it's look on top of all of what we
know about the treatment of workers at that corporation.
The idea that someone, whose job it was to make sure that they weren't
able to combine their power effectively have a force multiplier.
The fact that they would get paid that much,
while they were working there is bad enough that it's so lucrative work.
And I understand that there's gonna be lawyers working in
all sorts of different fields, but that is a career.
That is a choice man to be an expert on that, I don't know these people,
I'm sure there's a case to be made or something they tell themselves.
But that's just a rough job to have,
apparently though not that rough a job to lose.
Because the idea that you could fail at that job,
fail epically amidst thank God, amidst all of these successful labor actions.
And to make more in failure than many people will make in their entire lives,
that is just shocking.
It's a reminder of how fundamentally unequal our society is.
The things that we value in, the things that we don't,
as you pointed out that could go towards employee compensation.
I decided to run the numbers myself, and obviously what you get paid there,
is gonna depend on which state you're in.
But the highest number I could find, it would pay for
the full yearly salaries of 250 employees.
Not just like raising their salary to a reasonable livable wage or something.
The full salary for 250 people, literally dozens of Starbucks, full employee suites
could be paid for, in just the bonus for a lawyer who failed at their job.
>> Also, there's a little taste of what we experience with idiots,
let's say Donald Trump who get lauded as like this smart businessman, right?
You have Starbucks executives,
who like this is what you got from your negotiation.
Like did you even try to negotiate?
Like these are supposed to be the geniuses,
[FOREIGN] that's why they are the executives, they're the best.
That's why, they're paid so handsomely, they are the brightest minds.
This is the result of your negotiation with the lawyer,
you're trying to let go of?
A giant, this golden parachute, I mean Joe Manchin's daughter jealous,
she got a golden parachute from Mylan Pharmaceuticals.
The pharmaceutical company that she was the CEO of,
as she was price gouging people on the EpiPen.
And breaking antitrust laws that she was never held accountable for, but anyway,
that's a different story.
It's just amazing that this is the outcome, and
I think the reason why they wanted to let her go.
Is because turns out, she wasn't able to stop the efforts
to unionize at various Starbucks locations in Buffalo.
So two stores in Buffalo, New York have successfully unionized.
And there are many others across the country now,
that are looking to unionize as well.
Since last year, a wave of union organizing that started in Buffalo,
New York has swept Starbucks stores across the country.
Close to 190 have petitioned for union elections, and
10 stores half in Buffalo, and the others in New York city.
Mesa, Arizona, you've got Knoxville, Tennessee, and
in Starbucks' home of Seattle, have voted to join workers united.
And so, maybe it was her failure in stopping them that forced
the executives to wanna let go of her.
But it was a pricey separation agreement, and
it shows you what they're willing to spend the money on.
While essentially, ignoring, I think reasonable demands from their own workers.