Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz Spars With Democrats at Senate Hearing - The New Yo... - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...tz-starbucks-union-senate.html
starbucks Democratic party senate unions economics politics
shared by Javier E on 30 Mar 23
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Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, a former chief executive, said it was “somewhat rich that you’re being grilled by people who have never had the opportunity to create a single job.” He suggested that while a union might be necessary at companies “that are not good employers,” that was not the case at Starbucks.
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Democrats’ response came at two levels of elevation. First, they said the company was excluding unionized stores from the benefits that Starbucks had introduced since the union campaign began, such as faster accrual of sick leave and a credit-card tipping option for customers, showing that its commitment to such benefits was tenuous.
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More broadly, Democrats argued that unions acted as a corrective to a basic power imbalance between workers and management. A company might treat workers generously under one chief executive, then harshly under another. Only a union can ensure that the favorable treatment persists
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in illustrating how far the politics of labor have changed in Washington in recent decades, there was perhaps no better bellwether than Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado, a former business owner and self-described “extreme moderate.”
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Mr. Hickenlooper conducted himself more respectfully and deferentially than most of his Democratic colleagues, applauding Mr. Schultz for “creating one of the most successful brands in American history” and declaring that “you know more about economics than I will ever know.” But in his questioning he aligned himself squarely with his party, pointing out that the rise of inequality in recent decades had coincided with the weakening of unions.