Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz OK with Low Pay
Washington, DC-area Starbucks employee Sam Dukore put a few tough questions to Howard Schultz, the corporate CEO, when he came to town promoting a new benefit that Starbucks is offering its employees: tuition reimbursement for online college classes.
Dukore, who makes less than $10/hour working as a barista at Starbucks for 2 1/2 years, says Schultz should address low wages throughout the company. Although Starbucks made $1.7 billion in profits last year, the average pay for a barista at Starbucks is about $8/hour, and hours scheduled tend to fluctuate from week to week.
Schultz was paid $28.9 million in 2013, an 80% pay raise over the year before, plus $18 million in stock awards and an invitation to work as head of the company for three more years.
Dukore says that he was promised a promotion six months ago, but it’s failed to materialize.
Dukore had other complaints. Scheduling problems like “clopenings”–closing at 9pm only to come in again at 4am. Managers belittling Muslim employees who want time off to keep Ramadan. He described how some employees are so stretched from having a second job to support themselves that they have to squeeze in ten minutes of video chat with their families before shifts. He also claimed that women have been warned not to get pregnant, else they might lose their jobs.
Schultz seemed a bit thrown by Dukore’s line of questioning, perhaps expecting standing ovations for the Starbucks College Achievement Plan, which will reimburse employees for tuition for online classes toward a bachelor degree at Arizona State University. Starbucks will provide up to $5,250 per year to employees who must also apply for need-based federal assistance to complete the for-profit courses. Schultz calculates that it might cost Starbucks as much as $50 million to provide a shoddy education to low-income students at a disadvantage.
$50 million is even more money than Schultz makes in a year–in salary at least. So maybe that’s why he pegged Dukore as the lone malcontent in a room of satisfied Starbucks “partners.”
“I think it takes courage to say what you said. I suspect that most people don’t agree with it, but having said that, I respect the question,” Schultz said. His response to nearly all Dukore’s concerns was: “We provide benefits that almost no one in our sector provides.”
Schultz also didn’t address Starbucks’ refusal to recognize unions. Starbucks’ union-busting, by some accounts, can go “pound for pound with Walmart,” the retail chain that is possibly the most notorious union bully of them all.
“We’re a non-union company because we’ve done all the right things,” Schultz said.
You can sign a petition to support good jobs at the Starbucks Union website.