President Biden recently met with Starbucks employees who recently unionized, and now the company wants equal time with the commander-in-chief.
Last week, Laura Garza, one of the leading unionizers at Starbucks’ New York City Roastery, as well as 38 other labor organizations from various companies were invited to the White House to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.
President Biden, who has been a strong proponent for labor unions, surprised the visitors during the meeting.
In response to this, Starbucks Senior Vice President of Global Communications and Public Affairs A.J. Jones wrote a letter to top advisor Steve Ricchetti criticizing the administration for not inviting representatives from the coffee chain company.
“We believe this lack of representation discounts the reality that the majority of our partners oppose being members of a union and the unionization tactics being deployed by Workers United,” wrote Jones. “As you know, American workers have the absolute right to decide for themselves to unionize, or not to unionize, without any undue influences.”
Jones is requesting that the White House brings in employees who oppose unionization.
So far, 50 Starbucks locations have successfully unionized, while around 200 others are expected to vote or hear votes soon.
In an effort to dissuade employees from organizing, Schultz recently introduced new benefits for nonunion workers, maintaining that these perks would have to be negotiated separately for union employees.
