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Sorry to go all Tony Soprano on you. Or maybe I should say Howard Schultz. In the view of our government, the two business leaders relied on threats and intimidation to impress a point on renegade employees. Tony tended to use guns, bats and fists. Schultz, the godfather of Starbucks, leaned more toward verbal head slams, like the soul ripper he delivered to a barista two years ago during an employee meeting in California. Here it is in its entirety, so you may want to clear the room of children and the faint-hearted:
“If you don’t like working at Starbucks, you can go work for another company.”
Ooph. There it is, the clear violation of federal regulations that got the highly-caffeinated suit chastised by the government once in 2022 and a second time earlier this month, both times because of legal actions brought against him.
According to the National Labor Relations Board, the strangest political entity this side of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the three-time Starbucks CEO was threatening the employee with a remark like that. Heck, he’d even asked her in a preceding sentence if she liked working for the chain!
A three-person panel of NLRB directors was the last judicial body to crack down on Schultz. Mouthpieces for the crafty boss had tried to thwart a ruling by pointing out that two of the panel’s three members have a deep and overt relationship with Service Employees International Union, the labor powerhouse standing behind the barista whom Schultz was addressing. They asked the two to recuse themselves because of any possible conflict of interest.
Not necessary, said the NLRB. Other board members asked the two if their loyalties were torn and they said no. End of issue.
It’s a prime example of how imperially the NLRB operates. Created as the federal protector of union rights, it was left largely untethered because of the quasi-judicial role it’s called upon to fill, as it was in hearing the matter involving Schultz. It was hearing an appeal of an administrative court’s decision that Schultz had indeed violated federal labor regulations with his retort to an employee.
It also has a sort of prosecutor-at-large called the general counsel, who is not beholden to the five directors on the NLRB proper.
But the agency has also assumed a quasi-legislative role. The NLRB has riled the franchise community for 15 years running by insisting that franchisor and franchisee have equal responsibility for how a licensee’s staff is managed. It unilaterally decided the two were joint employers, without even a rubber-stamping from Congress.
The only check on its power is the appointment of the members and general counsel by the president, with Senate confirmation required for the directors. They serve staggered five-year terms, meaning one seat technically comes open every year. The general counsel serves for four.
Even someone who got a “C” in their high school civics class will realize the structure doesn’t exactly embody the checks and balances the Founding Fathers foresaw as a way of preventing one government entity from seizing undue power. Whoever set up the NLRB apparently got a “D.” Make that an “F.” The board has been functioning as a fiefdom of organized labor, with a clear bias toward labor and against management. Witness the decision on Schultz’s statement.
We’re on the cusp of an election historians have characterized as a referendum on democracy and representative government. It’s a shame there won’t be a straight-up yes or no vote on whether the NLRB should be allowed to continue functioning as it has, with next to no accountability or curbs on its power.
I know how I’d vote.
Before you decide how you’d vote, consider this: In the view of the NLRB, you’re smudging the line if you so much as ask employees with union sympathies if they like their jobs. And you’re clearly in the red zone if you so much as suggest they’d be happier elsewhere.