Strategic Organizing Center Submits Letter to SEC Calling on Starbucks to Properly Disclose True Cost of Anti-Union Campaign - Seite 2

$13 million

 

 

 

Estimated Liabilities Based on NLRB General Counsel Complaints and Administrative Law Judge Decisions through February 2024:²

 

Illegally Denied Wages and Tips (Note: This grows at a rate of $815,000 per week)

$61 million

 

 

 

 

Illegal Firings and Store Closings

$26 million

 

 

 

 

Total Estimated Expenditures and Liabilities

$240 million

The letter also describes why the SOC believes that Starbucks’ proxy materials and other filings fail to provide an accurate portrayal to shareholders:

Indeed, the Company spills a fair amount of ink (in its proxy statement) on its “Reinvention Plan” and business strategy to paint a rosy—yet misleading—picture of its purported attention to its partners that acknowledges their importance while obfuscating Starbucks’ true approach to human capital management that informs the Proxy Contest.³ In doing so, the Company tactically and conveniently cherry picks what it thinks the broader investing public should know about its business and about the Proxy Contest.

In the letter, the SOC requests that the SEC require Starbucks to fully disclose to shareholders the costs and liabilities associated with its anti-union efforts.

The SOC believes Starbucks’ lack of disclosure and the exorbitant cost to shareholders represent just the latest examples of the current Board’s lack of oversight, counterproductive approach to labor issues and flawed allocation of resources. For these reasons – and to protect shareholder value – the SOC has nominated three director candidates (the “SOC Nominees”), who are ideally suited to help repair the relationship with the Company’s workers and regulators while safeguarding the best interests of all Starbucks’ stakeholders.