AWF Defends Starbucks in Union Smear Campaign
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: John Kartch
8 FEBRUARY 2008
202-785-0266
Labor Group Supports Starbucks Actions
Employers Have the Right to Use Public Information to Help Their Business
Washington, D.C. — Today, the Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF), a non-partisan advocacy project dedicated to the protection of worker freedom, announced its support for Starbucks using public information to better its business environment.
Recently, Starbucks has come under fire for pulling names from a public, online discussion forum and cross-referencing them with their employee database. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the parent of the Starbucks Workers Union (SWU), claims that, “Starbucks does not treat its employees in a fair manner by paying low wages and not providing enough hours to work.” Claims that AWF policy director Brian Johnson says is nothing more than a corporate smear campaign against Starbucks.
“As a company that was named by Forbes magazine as the number two ‘best company to work for’, this is merely a smear campaign by their own union,” Johnson says. “Unions are increasingly ferocious in their attempts to ruin the reputations of corporations using any tactics possible.”
Cornell University is also weighing in against Starbucks and other company’s such as Cintas, the clothing manufacturer by not allowing them to recruit on their campus. Johnson says that employers and private sector organizations have the right to run their organizations as they see fit.
“When universities and unions get together to push their agenda against corporations that provide fair market wages and benefits, the worker looses every time. If these efforts were concentrated on protecting workers by requiring increased union transparency, accountability, and ensuring that every worker in every state has the right to say ‘no’ to forced unionization and compulsory dues paying, workers would be much better off,” adds Johnson.
