Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has history of opposing unions

Howard Schultz’s first week back at the helm of Starbucks ended with seven more company-owned cafes unionizing, bringing the total tally to 16.

But would-be union members at Starbucks will likely need to gird for a tougher response from the company. Schultz, who oversaw the coffee giant’s growth from a small Seattle chain into a global behemoth, has a long history of opposing unions.

It’s still too soon to tell whether Schultz will adopt a new playbook for a time when workers feel emboldened by rising wages and a tight labor market, but his recent actions and words could offer some clues.

On Monday he announced that the company would suspend stock buybacks to invest in its stores and employees, yet in a town hall with workers that same day, he repeated his belief in the company team approach to labor management.

“I’m not an anti-union person. I am pro-Starbucks, pro-partner, pro-Starbucks culture,” Schultz said. “We didn’t get here by having a union.”

Both organizers and labor experts expect the company under Schultz’s leadership will ramp up efforts to quash the labor push.

“I think they’re likely to double down on their anti-union efforts and do everything they possibly can,” said John Logan, a labor professor at San Francisco State University.

Starbucks, under previous CEO Kevin Johnson, has already faced accusations of union busting from Workers United, which has filed dozens of complaints with the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB also has accused the company of retaliating against pro-union staff in Phoenix. Starbucks has denied the claims.

Johnson took a relatively hands off approach publicly, leaving most of the effort to North American President Rossann Williams. But when Buffalo, New York-area locations kicked off the union push last year, it was Schultz, not Johnson, who visited to speak with baristas.

To date, more than 180 company-owned locations have filed petitions for a union election, although that is still a small fraction of Starbucks’ overall U.S. footprint of nearly 9,000 stores. Out of the locations whose votes have been counted, only one cafe has opposed unionizing.