Starbucks announces plans to find new CEO from outside the company
Jun 7, 2022, 2:54 PM
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. (File, Associated Press)
(File, Associated Press)
With Starbucks’ CEO Kevin Johnson stepping down as CEO last April, the coffee giant announced that it would focus on finding a new CEO from outside the company.
Howard Schultz has been appointed as interim CEO as the company continues its search. Schultz has been the highest-ranking executive twice in the past, once from 1986 until 2000 and again from 2008 to 2017.
The corporation has said that the position isn’t permanent and is expected to have a replacement for Schultz around the end of the year.
Union push among Starbucks workers an ‘evolving backdrop’ of ‘uncertainty,’ says retiring CEO
This change in Starbucks’ leadership comes amidst growing unionization efforts, with more than 180 locations having unionized or have filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board, most of which have done so in the past six months of 2022.
Schultz has been a long-time opponent of unionization efforts for Starbucks. He and top executives visited stores across the country to dissuade baristas from unionizing.
“If people believe management is not fairly sharing the rewards, they will feel alienated,” Schultz wrote in his book “Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time.” “Once they start distrusting management, the company’s future is compromised.”
This follows corporate plans to close the College Ave. location in Ithaca, N.Y. after the workers announced unionization attempts. Workers were told that their location was being shut down because of safety concerns relating to an overflowing grease trap in the store.
“(They) were informed by their district manager that their store would be permanently closing on June 10, 2022,” Starbucks Workers United said in a press release. “This is the first Starbucks location that the company has attempted to close after workers voted to unionize.”
Ithaca workers are holding a rally June 8, calling for a local boycott of all Starbucks locations in protest of what they see as retaliation for unionization efforts.
