Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz Just Vowed To End The Days Of 'False Promises'

The month of April has been marked by several public sightings of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. His recent appearances at Starbucks stores in Southern California, as NPR learned from Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn, were probably attempts to conduct what she called "listening sessions." Talking face-to-face with employees could give Schultz a better idea about what is wrong at Starbucks and how he could address it as a leader — without resorting to unions.

Evidently, Schultz believes he has come to an understanding with workers. Earlier this month, Reuters received a video created by the CEO in which he calls out his company's failure to uphold promises made in recent years. "We are going to make promises that we will keep, promises that are real and going to solve the problems that exist in your stores," Schultz said. What this means in practice, he clarified, is that Starbucks will implement more training, guarantee hours to its workers, and conduct better maintenance of store equipment — issues that he got insight about during "co-creation sessions" with employees.

Schultz has been openly against Starbucks' stores expanding efforts to unionize, calling unions an "assault" on companies in general. His recent talks with workers seem to be his attempt to discourage employees from unionizing by addressing their concerns about the company. "We will become the best version of Starbucks by co-creating our future directly as partners," he wrote in an open letter to the company this month. "However, we must not be distracted by the different vision being put forward by union organizers at some Starbucks stores."