Starbucks interim CEO Howard Schultz reportedly lashed out at a coffee chain barista who was leading a union campaign at one of the company’s California locations, telling Hall, “If you hate Starbucks that much, then why don’t you go somewhere else.” there?”
The alleged encounter between Schultz and 25-year-old barista Madison Hall took place at Long Beach Airport on Friday, Hall has claimed.
According to pro-union news site More Perfect Union, Schultz, 68, has been touring Starbucks locations nationwide to discourage his employees from joining unions.
The Post has reached out to Starbucks for comment.
Hall, who is leading an organizing campaign by workers at a Starbucks restaurant in Long Beach, was invited to a meeting with Schultz and about two dozen other employees from other stores in the area, the website said.
The meeting, held in a building on the Long Beach airport campus, began with a videotaped speech by Schultz a week ago in which the interim CEO blew up Starbucks Workers United, the group behind the organizing campaign .
The reported incident occurred during a meeting between Schultz and company employees at Long Beach Airport, AP
Schultz, who recently took over the helm of the company after former CEO Kevin Johnson left the company, called the group “outsiders trying to take over our people” while leading an “assault” on the coffee chain.
He then showed up in person to take part in a question-and-answer session with workers. Earlier last week, Schultz held similar meetings with employees in Seattle and Chicago.
A Starbucks spokesperson told More Perfect Union that “the focus of the meeting was how we can improve the partner experience and how we can shape the future of Starbucks together.”
Hall told More Perfect Union that when Hall confronted Schultz over reports that Starbucks was laying off employees who were actively involved in the organization, the interim CEO cut Hall off.
Schultz has tried to dissuade workers at the coffee chain’s 9,000 US restaurants from joining unions. SOPA Images/Light Rocket via Gett
“Then he ranted at length about the history of Starbucks and how he used to be poor,” Hall said. “I said, ‘You say you’re not anti-union, but on July 1, 2021 [Starbucks was] found guilty of retaliation in Philadelphia,'” Hall said, referring to a decision by the National Labor Relations Board that found the company took action against two baristas who attempted to unionize.
“That’s when he got super defensive and interrupted me by saying, ‘We don’t talk about it,'” Hall claimed. “It was very, very bad. He got very aggressive towards me.”
“And then he scolded again and told everyone else he’s sorry that this was brought up, that this isn’t what [the event] was around and he had his hand on me like I was a problem,” Hall claimed.
So far, workers at 16 Starbucks US locations have voted to form unions. AFP via Getty Images
A Starbucks spokesman told the pro-union news site: “Howard and others in the room asked to get back on track and put the focus back on the whiteboarding sessions and what they were working on together.”
Starbucks management suffered a weekend of further setbacks when six more stores — all in upstate New York — voted to unionize.
Two stores in Rochester and another in Buffalo — the city where the union campaign first began — voted to form a union on Thursday afternoon. The next day, three other stores in Ithaca also approved the union organizing effort. This brings the total number of Starbucks stores that voted to form unions to 16.
There are more than 9,000 restaurants owned by the coffee chain nationwide.
The labor movement has recently recorded several significant victories. Last week, workers at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island voted to unionize — a first for the mega-retailer, which has been working to quash similar efforts by organized labor.