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Ex-Starbucks CEO Slammed After Using Bizarre Holocaust Analogy To Discourage Workers From Unionizing
Former CEO and largest shareholder of Starbucks Howard Schultz is under fire after using a bizarre analogy to the Holocaust in an attempt to dissuade workers at the coffee chain from unionizing.
Schultz delivered his comments at a meeting in Buffalo, New York, where three Starbucks locations are on the verge of a historic vote to unionize that could have repercussions not just for Starbucks, but for the food-service and retail industries as a whole.
Schultz, who is Jewish, attempted to draw a comparison between the supposed selflessness of Starbucks' corporate culture and that of Jewish Holocaust victims who were forced to help each other during their kidnapping, imprisonment and murder in Nazi Germany.
See his comments below.
Howard Schultz compares workers to prisoners of Nazisyoutu.be
Schultz included a story of how European Jews were often forced to share one blanket among several people when they were herded into train cars to be deported to death camps, comparing this to the way Starbucks treats its employees and imploring the Buffalo employees to do the same for the company.
Schultz said:
"Not everyone but most people shared their blanket with five other people. So much of that story is threaded into what we've tried to do at Starbucks is share our blanket."
Schultz noted that the story came from a rabbi he met in Israel, who urged the billionaire then-CEO to "share his blanket" as the captured Jews in the story had been forced to do.
Schultz seems not to have understood the rabbi's point, though; he used the story in an attempt to convince Starbucks workers not to try to access the more livable wages and benefits his company is not willing to give them.
That's aside, of course, from the fact that there is no legitimate comparison between Jews being led to their murder by an ethno-nationalist dictatorship engaging in genocide and Starbucks employees trying to unionize for better wages and benefits, and there's no real way to justify asking employees to "share their blanket with five other people."
Schultz's speech is just the latest chapter in an ongoing union-busting effort by Starbucks, which has included requiring employees to attend mandatory anti-union meetings, sending employees anti-union emails, temporarily closing two Starbucks locations that were attempting to unionize, and visits from high-profile executives at the company.
Unionization is a Constitutional right of all employees protected by the First Amendment.
By most accounts, Schultz's speech was not well received, and when a worker responded by asking Schultz to sign an agreement for "fair election principles" in the employees' upcoming unionization vote, Schultz fled the room.
Schultz's speech went over like a lead balloon on Twitter, too, where people were astonished by his tone-deaf message.
still laughing that Starbucks hyped up a surprise celebrity speaker they were bringing in to talk to workers in Buffalo and then it was Howard Schultz and he told the workers that they're like prisoners in a concentration camp
— Alex Press (@alexnpress) November 9, 2021
My wife's uncle was burned to ash as boy at Auschwitz. Just like working at @Starbucks.
Her father's family was wiped out, giving him a lifetime of nightmares. Just like working for @HowardSchultz.
My grandmother lost everyone. Just like serving coffee.https://t.co/gYmoZWUGJM
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) November 9, 2021
This is just jaw dropping.
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) November 9, 2021
No, this is not South Park. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz really did try to convince company employees not to vote for a union by telling them heartwarming concentration camp stories. https://t.co/FA03s5yJJi
— Helaine Olen (@helaineolen) November 9, 2021
This still baffles me as to what they are doing at Starbucks that relates to sharing a blanket with 5 other prisoners at a literal death camp. I'm wracking my brain to find anything. They have so little money to give employees that they should be happy to get what they get? What
— Unevenflow 🐬 (@Unevenflow) November 9, 2021
As of last week, I'm 4 years removed from having been a Starbucks barista (for 6 and 1/2 years!) and I still have nightmare about my time working there.
Reading this made me feel insane
— Terence Wiggins, Local Hunk (@TheBlackNerd) November 9, 2021
I feel like every CEO pr handbook should have a Hippocratic esque oath that says "first, no holocaust analogies"
— Dominic (@WeedSpencer) November 9, 2021
"No need to unionize because we share our Holocaust blanket with our Starbucks prisoners." - Howard Schultz https://t.co/uvOk4flTXU
— Eli Valley (@elivalley) November 9, 2021
I feel like it wasn't the best strategy for Howard Schultz to persuade Starbucks workers not to unionize by telling them they are like inmates in Auschwitz https://t.co/xsmPliQcwV
— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) November 9, 2021
Howard Schultz told Starbucks workers “you can't have nice things like reliable hours and fair pay because our company is like a concentration camp where people needed to share blankets to survive" ??!?! https://t.co/VyndOasRDz
— Rachel Deutsch (@RachelDeutsch6) November 9, 2021
A spokesperson for Starbucks has yet to comment on Schultz's speech. The company has since sought to delay the Buffalo stores' Constitutionally protected unionization vote.