From CNBC:

A coalition of unions is making a case against Starbucks before the annual meeting. It claims that Starbucks’ response to a union movement has hurt its reputation. Starbucks wants to replace three board members with its own nominees and says its board has the necessary qualifications for its success. Since the first café in Buffalo unionized, nearly 400 Starbucks-owned cafes have voted in favor of organizing.

Polling for the coalition found that a quarter of a billion dollars was spent on the company’s response to unionization, causing damage to the brand’s value. Two-thirds of people polled said they would be less likely to visit Starbucks if the company broke federal labor laws. The coalition is against the board’s “unnecessarily confrontational” strategy with the union. A National Labor Relations Board investigation led to complaints against Starbucks Corporation and Siren Retail Corporation.

The coalition asserts that its affiliated unions have made substantial investments in Starbucks and shows that, since November, Starbucks stock fell 6% while its peers gained 10.6%, or the S&P 500 Restaurants benchmark gained 5.2% during the same period. Starbucks faced several challenges aside from labor organizing in that time. The coalition says the company’s competing peer group was chosen to be flattering despite recent underperformance.

Starbucks added three new directors in January and argues that its current board has valuable perspectives. The company says its competitors are outperforming those of its peer group by 5 percentage points over the past three years. Starbucks also claims that it has invested nearly $9 billion in the overall partner and store experience over the past three years, with a third of that investment going to its partners through wage increases, training, and new equipment.

Starbucks said it aims to reach ratified contracts for each represented store in 2024. It plans to unlock $3 billion in efficiencies to invest in its workers. Starbucks’ CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, reiterated the company’s commitment to finding a constructive path forward with the unions. The coalition claims that Starbucks’ recent response to the unionization campaign has been “unnecessarily confrontational.”



Read more: SOC labor coalition accuses Starbucks of ‘flawed’ union strategy