Starbucks employees are inches from forming a union to advocate for safer working conditions, better wages and benefits. The movement might be leading CEO Howard Schultz to desperation.
In a video address, Schultz compared Starbucks to Holocaust prisoners in his effort to stop the unionization. He described the experiences of prisoners in rail cars headed to their torture and death in Nazi concentration camps, Vice News reported.
Schultz explained that in those rail cars only a few were given blankets and had to share them with others. He told the workers that the Starbucks workers should share the company’s blanket instead of demanding their own individual benefits. One of the many problems with Schultz’s argument is that the workers are still the Holocaust prisoners in that analogy.
“Not everyone but most people shared their blanket with five other people,” Schultz, who noted that he is Jewish before sharing the story, said. “So much of that story is threaded into what we’ve tried to do at Starbucks is share our blanket.”
Howard Schultz’s net worth is $5 billion.
A spokesperson wouldn’t comment on the story, but noted he’s talked about it before in a March 2016 speech to shareholders about “the American dream” Vice reported.
See the video below:
Howard Schultz compares workers to prisoners of Nazis
www.youtube.com