CORPORATE INTIMIDATION: Starbucks is basically forcing its employees to lobby Washington D.C. [View all]

[Report1212]

Last edited Wed Dec 26, 2012, 02:16 PM - Edit history (2)

This is wildly inappropriate

CNN reports that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has written a letter to his chain’s 120 stores in the Washington, D.C. area to ask employees there to write “Come Together” on coffee cups on Thursday and Friday.

“Rather than be bystanders, you and your customers have an opportunity — and I believe we all have a responsibility — to send our elected officials a respectful but potent message, urging them to come together to find common ground,” Schultz wrote in his letter to the stores. He also apparently cited Fix The Debt, the powerful corporate front group that has been pushing for an agreement to cut Social Security benefits and lower corporate tax rates for months.

In a statement to CNN, the company stressed that these messages are voluntary.

But by even asking employees to voluntarily influence lawmakers to reach an agreement, Schultz is inappropriately pressuring them to take a political stand they may not agree with. For example, some of these employees may benefit from veterans or Social Security benefits that are at risk of being cut in a bad deal.

Read more: http://boldprogressives.org/starbucks-is-inappropriately-enlisting-its-d-c-employees-in-fiscal-lobbying/

UPDATE:

UPDATE II: I talked to a Starbucks employee in the D.C. area. This is what they had to say about being asked to take part in this campaign:

[It's] absolutely stupid. I don't get paid nearly enough to write that on all the cups. It's like I'm being punished in elementary school, except instead of a chalkboard, I have hundreds of cups. The message is Starbucks doesn't care about their "partners." They will be forced to do more work that is necessary or good, and not compensate them for it, and try to put out their message even if the "partner" doesn't agree with it. ... Compromise would get something done, but it'll leave a [bad] deal for the working poor and the middle class.