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New Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol Has a History of Union-Busting
Niccol's tenure as Chipotle CEO was marred by settlements over unfair labor practices and child labor law violations.
Aug 13, 2024
Labor advocates responded to Tuesday's announcement that global coffee giant Starbucks hired Brian Niccol as its new chief executive officer by highlighting his history of union-busting during his previous job as CEO of the fast-food chain Chipotle.
Starbucks' move to replace former CEO Laxman Narasimhan with Niccol comes as the company's share price has fallen amid an ongoing unionization wave by its workers and boycotts over its perceived support for Israel, which is on trial for genocide at the World Court over its war on Gaza.
"We are thrilled to welcome Brian to Starbucks. His phenomenal career speaks for itself," Starbucks board chair Mellody Hobson said in a statement announcing his hiring. "Like all of us at Starbucks, he understands that a remarkable customer experience is rooted in an exceptional partner experience."
Niccol—who will be Starbucks' fourth CEO in just two years—said he is "energized by the tremendous potential to drive growth and further enhance the Starbucks experience for our customers and partners, while staying true to our mission and values."
Starbucks refers to its workers as "partners."
However, More Perfect Union noted that, under Niccol's leadership, Chipotle closed a store in Augusta, Maine in 2022 after employees there tried to make it the company's first unionized location. The workers filed a complaint at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which ruled that the closure was an illegal act of union-busting.
Last year, Chipotle agreed to pay former workers at the Augusta store $240,000 as part of a settlement over the illegal closure. The company also settled another unfair labor practices charge after the NLRB sided with workers at a Lawrence, Kansas Chipotle who accused management of thwarting their unionization drive.
While the Augusta workers failed to unionize their store, employees of another Chipotle—this one in Lansing, Michigan—overcame what More Perfect Union called "egregious union-busting" and voted to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 243.
During Niccol's tenure, Chipotle also paid to settle child labor law violations in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C.
According to the Financial Times, Starbucks' decision to oust Narasimhan came after pressure from activist investor Elliott Management and former company CEO Howard Schultz, a notorious union-buster.
Niccol will take over as Starbucks CEO on September 9. Until then, chief financial officer Rachel Ruggeri will serve as interim CEO.
According to the Starbucks Workers United union, employees at more than 470 Starbucks locations across the United States have voted to unionize since baristas at a store on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, New York became the first to do so in late 2021.
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Starbucks Doesn't Care the Costs, It Just Wants to Crush the Barista Unions
Despite various concerns, Starbucks has repeatedly bent or broken US labor law to destroy those workers’ efforts and punish them for even trying to better their lives.
Jun 17, 2023
Many people are aware that their friendly Starbucks’ baristas have been trying to form unions, to raise their wages and seek safer workplaces and better treatment at work. They may not be aware that Starbucks has repeatedly bent or broken US labor law to destroy those workers’ efforts and punish them for even trying to better their lives. Now the company’s dirty linen is being aired publicly—through a rare vote by its shareholders, a Senate hearing, and most recently a complaint to the International Labour Organization (ILO) seeking a review of US law that allows Starbucks to crush workers’ rights with seeming impunity.
Over the last two years Starbucks’ workers at more than 300 of the company’s stores have voted to unionize in government supervised elections—but Starbucks has not agreed to a single collective bargaining agreement. Meanwhile the company has granted wage and benefit increases to workers at non-union stores while withholding them from baristas who unionized, rubbing this discrimination in the organized workers’ faces. The company has threatened and fired workers who support the union and closed stores where workers voted for the union. Workers have filed more than 500 charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
After nearly a century of anti-union interpretations of the law by hostile courts, and wielding only weak enforcement tools, the NLRB has been unable to stop union-busting in this or other egregious cases.
After careful reviews of the facts, NLRB administrative law judges, the National Labor Relations Board and federal district courts have ruled that Starbucks acted illegally in multiple instances. In light of the lengthening list of egregious violations and management’s arrogant refusal to correct course, a majority of Starbucks’ shareholders voted in March to require the company to conduct an independent audit of its behavior toward workers and unions. It is extremely rare for shareholders to take on management on the issue of labor rights. One institutional investor said “This is a huge signal from shareholders to the company of a need to take stock. Starbucks management is in conflict with its own workforce.”
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a hearing on the matter in late March, with Starbucks’ former CEO appearing only under threat of subpoena while Starbucks’ workers and critics presented the violations in vivid detail. Senator Bernie Sanders, the committee chair, observed “Over the past 18 months, Starbucks has waged the most aggressive and illegal union busting campaign in the modern history of our country.”
Most recently the unions representing Starbucks workers—the Service Employees International Union and its Workers United affiliate—along with the AFL-CIO, have filed a complaint with the International Labour Organization (ILO) asking for an investigation by the UN body of Starbucks’ behavior. The complaint details the weaknesses in US labor law, including an enforcement regime characterized by protracted delays and ineffective remedies that establish no deterrence against a company that continues to interfere with workers’ freedom of association even after multiple complaints, hearings, and findings of unlawful conduct.
Some context is in order here. The US played an active role at the ILO to reach an international consensus that freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively are among the most fundamental rights of workers in all countries of the world, a consensus that was codified in the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. This instrument obligates the US and all 186 member states of the ILO to respect and realize these rights, regardless of whether a country has ratified the relevant ILO conventions.
Since 2007 the US has invoked these obligations again and again in its trade agreements to require trading partners to adopt and maintain statutes, regulations and practices that protect these rights. In fact, Congress has required the White House to negotiate obligations to respect these fundamental rights in free trade agreements as a condition for their ratification. This embrace of international labor standards and obligations has been an essential foundation for reaching bipartisan consensus on US foreign economic policy.
The most recent US free trade agreement, the United States Mexico Canada Agreement, won strong bipartisan approval in significant part because it required Mexico to reform its labor laws to strengthen its workers’ rights to form independent unions and bargain collectively. This was seen as a pre-requisite to address the failure of Mexican wages to converge upward during the twenty-five years of NAFTA, the predecessor trade pact covering North America. Allowing Starbucks to continue to violate its workers’ rights with impunity poses real risk to the carefully and laboriously crafted consensus on labor rights and standards that has allowed the US to move forward on trade and related economic policy.
The official, legislated policy of the United States is to protect the right of workers to organize unions and to encourage collective bargaining. However, after nearly a century of anti-union interpretations of the law by hostile courts, and wielding only weak enforcement tools, the National Labor Relations Board has been unable to stop union-busting in this or other egregious cases. The current petition filed with the ILO aims to bring the problem into the open, as the first step to crack down on scoff-law Starbucks and build support for serious labor law reforms that would strengthen US workers’ rights. The petitioners request the ILO to send an on-the-spot mission to investigate the violations in light of US obligations under the internationally agreed labor standards. The US government should accept such a mission for the sake of its own workers and for its credibility on the international stage.
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Why I Keep Working at Starbucks Despite Its Union-Busting
I stay because that’s exactly what the company fears, they want us to feel disposable, weak, and worthless. We refuse.
Apr 13, 2023
On a warm summer afternoon in Bellingham, my coworkers and I huddle around a single phone outside of my Starbucks, watching as our union election votes are counted. With every “yes"that is announced, we blow into the noisemakers held between our lips, a chorus alerting our coworkers inside the building of our results. Silence falls as the final vote is counted, until we erupt into jumps, cheers, and hugs. The results were in: a unanimous victory.
That unforgettable moment was nearly 10 months ago. Now, we stand among over 7,000 Starbucks workers across 270 organized stores. Yet, none of us have a contract.
Since my store's vote, our working conditions have only gotten worse. In my two years working at Starbucks, I have experienced a dramatic shift from when I first started; I've watched management cut my coworkers hours from 30 a week down to 15, where they no longer qualify for the company's 'incredible' benefits. When we used to expect six people working during our busy morning peaks, we're lucky to have four. We're constantly forced to do the work of two people while getting paid a wage that isn't enough for one.
When I tell people my story, the question I am most often asked—and admittedly one I ask myself—is “why do you stay at this job?”
The union gives us an opportunity to change the company's current trajectory, to reclaim the mission and values that they have abandoned.
Starbucks—led by the whims of former CEO Howard Schultz—has not only ignored our requests to bargain, but they've formulated these new working conditions to break our spirits. It's been incredibly difficult watching my coworkers, the friends I used to laugh with every day, be forced to take on a second job or to quit altogether. The sheer physical and emotional exhaustion from this job has overtaken the joy I used to feel while making lattes and talking to our regular customers; I find myself smiling less and less.
By these standards, the future appears bleak. And it would be, if not for the union behind us.
With a union, we have an opportunity to change the company's current trajectory, to reclaim the mission and values that they have abandoned. The union has brought my coworkers and I hope in times of distress, knowing that we have joined the thousands of others fighting for safety, security, and respect in our workplace. When I see supporters from across the country rooting for our campaign, it reminds me that this fight goes further than Starbucks or even fast food, our fight is for all working people.
Starbucks claims to be a 'different kind of company,' yet they have only shown me that they are dedicated to busting our union campaign and punishing its workers, and will spend millions of dollars to do so. However, this doesn't have to be the legacy of the company forever. With the recent change in CEOs, Starbucks has a new opportunity, one where they can return to the progressive company it once was, but that can only happen if they choose to listen to its workers and commit to negotiate a fair union contract.
So, returning to the question, why do I stay at this job?
I stay because I know that Starbucks can be so much more. This company wants its workers to feel disposable, weak, and worthless, however, joining the union has shown me that is not true. I know that I and every other barista deserve better, and that we will be the ones to change this company into one that lives up to its values. I stay to show Starbucks that they cannot break my spirit; I stay to see the day that we win our first contract and know that this long fight has all been worth it.
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