I talk about:

🔥The origin of Starbucks' name and logo, including the founders' inspiration from a popular book.

🔥The reasons behind the boycotts against Starbucks, focusing on their alleged anti-union practices and political stance on the Israeli-Palestinian genocide.

🔥The impact of these boycotts on Starbucks, including financial losses, stock price decline, and damage to their brand reputation.

🔥How consumer behavior, particularly among Millennials and Gen Z, is driving these boycotts.

🔥Highlight the need for ethical practices and genuine engagement with consumers to avoid similar backlash.

Let’s connect:

Episode Transcript:

Do you ever just do an episode that you know is gonna be just juicy? Because that's what's about to happen. I was doing research for this episode, and you know when people talk about a backstory behind maybe a logo or a name, and then you find it, and then you go “what the absolute?!” Anyway, so that's what we're going to get into today.

Hi, hello, and welcome to Business Unfiltered™: The Podcast. I'm Kristen Kubik, and I'm your bridge between ethics and profits and your gatekeeper between you and the legal. I'm an Inclusive Marketing and Business Compliance Consultant dedicated to helping companies run ethically and making sure all voices are heard. 

What I am talking about is the meaning behind Starbucks and the meaning behind their siren as their logo. Here's the thing, this entire episode is about boycotts and can they actually happen to you, or are they just a fluke? 

We're talking naturally about the ridiculously insane and ever ever growing boycott against Starbucks that has been happening since roughly October, November of 2023. Here's the thing though, as I was doing a little bit of research on this to be able to formulate how I wanted to talk about this, because I know a lot about it, but being able to talk about it is a little bit different than actually doing the things, right! So as I was talking about this and as I was looking at things I decided I was going to start with the source and go to Starbucks as I was looking at their website as I was looking at their about section, their history of how they got their name and how their logo came about.

So all of it stemmed from the fact that the founders liked the book, Moby Dick. And yeah, there's a major question mark when I said that, because as we're talking about liking the book, Moby Dick, and what we're talking about right now, which is a massive boycott based on the shit that Starbucks stands for, they are two very contradictory things, right?

Because Moby Dick was very universal. It was a very big metaphor for how the universe treats everyone and how, if you believe in God and the Bible and, you know, if you want to go down that realm, you can, some people, you know, believe, everyone believes what they believe, I'm just going to put it that way. 

That being said. Then I dove into a little bit of the siren, right? So there was a massive debate around 2011 on whether it was a mermaid or a siren. So, mermaids have one tail. This is a twin tailed siren. Everyone thought they just kind of split the tail in half and it was a mermaid. It is a twin tailed siren. 

The thing is, on their about page in the history of their entire brand, something stood out; a mysterious nautical figure called to them as sirens do. 

Here's the thing about sirens though, and this is why I think this part is funny. Sirens notoriously  are mythologically known to lure sailors to destruction, to their death, to their untimely demise.

So to take that as your entire brand, I think is a very interesting take. This has a prevalence because when we're talking about this in terms of Starbucks and boycotts and why and can this happen to you, it says a lot about the brand in general, right?

So why do people boycott in general? Let's start there.  People boycott because they are looking at things you do, you don't do, you should, you shouldn't do based on how their morals, how their views, how what they see and think and do align with you, your business, your choices, the things that you're doing, you're saying, things like that. 

Do they all align with each other?  In this case, no, it's not. So, if you are unaware, Starbucks is being boycotted for two main reasons. Number one is an alleged anti-union practice. I say allegedly because I'm not trying to get sued, right?  Starbucks has faced a lot of criticism for its opposition to unionization efforts by employees. 

Critics accused the company of engaging in anti-union tactics such as closing stores that have voted to unionize, firing pro-union employees, and holding mandatory anti-union meetings, which, per the National Labor Relations Board, that's not legal, right? So, and I'll get into the NLRB later, but the NLRB has actually filed complaints, multiple complaints, against Starbucks for unfair labor practices related to unionization efforts. 

The second reason that people are boycotting Starbucks is, and it's pretty much a mix of the two, but some people are very hard on one, some people are very hard on two, some people will do a mix. The second reason is their alleged potential, or alleged political stance on the Israeli-Palestine, I'm gonna call it what it is, it's a genocide. 

You will not, honest, I'm not gonna lie, you are not gonna see me call it a conflict, it's not a conflict, it's a genocide.  

That being said, in October 2023, Starbucks sued Starbucks Workers United, which is the union representing the Starbucks employees, over a social media post expressing solidarity with Palestinians. 

This caused a massive uproar, especially all over TikTok. The post in general, I believe, if I'm thinking correctly, was on Instagram. I did not fact check myself, I'm not gonna lie, but I believe it was on Instagram. TikTok went absolutely apeshit over it, and I'm going to try my hardest to leave my opinions out of all this because I think it's really important to just state facts and keep on rolling. 

That being said, the lawsuit in general, along with Starbucks distancing itself from TikTok, the union stance in general led to massive calls for boycotts from individuals who overall felt the company was taking sides in the war, we'll put it that way, in the war on Palestinians.  So, in doing that, people essentially straight up just said, I'm putting my money where my mouth is, I'm not being afraid to do so, and let's roll. 

And it lit like wildfire. Because here's the thing, and I'm going to do an episode on this later, of buyer trends. And the reason being is when we're talking about how people have not been afraid to put their money where their mouth is and what they're spending. 

We are not shit talking about how people in Gen Z especially, but millennials also, are not afraid to stop spending the little amount we already get to align with our values. We slash because they are not afraid to do it. Right? So, and I say we, because I am technically like I am a millennial. So, grouping that into the buyer trends, millennials and Gen Z, they're notorious for spending when or where and where really.  

They're notorious for spending where their morals are aligning. So, if you get caught not doing the things that make sense on just a basic humanity level at this point, you're really going to get called out for it. And it's not a cancel culture type thing. I think there's a whole episode on that I can do also on “cancel culture” and how it affects a business.

It's more of an accountability thing because people are tired of just seeing profits and profits and profits and profits. And they want to be seen as a human and to have someone give a shit about them as a human, which is why I talk a lot about human first versus profit first. And it's why I talk a lot about bridging the gap between ethics and profits, because there is a lack of a gap. 

Like there is a massive gap there. And in talking about that, when we're talking about more of the ethics, there's no reason you can't still make money, but there's a big reason why you cannot just walk all over anyone and everyone to get there. And it's why there's a big stir up over the phrase that there are no ethical billionaires, because it is yet to be shown that people in these billion dollar positions, billion dollar companies, multi billion dollar companies can do things in an ethical way. 

That being said, I was looking at the complaints that the National Labor Relations Board have filed against Starbucks, and they primarily centered around their alleged unfair labor practices relating to their unionization efforts.

Right? So, some of the key complaints were looking at their refusal to bargain, which is a massive key in unionization. Right? Like, you have to be able to bargain. So there's a complaint of a refusal to bargain. They alleged that Starbucks has refused to bargain in good faith with the union.

At over 160 stores, it's a violation of a federal labor law, which is definitely, definitely massive.  The federal labor laws require employers to bargain with the duly elected representatives of their employees. The next one is that there is a complaint of retaliation against union supporters. 

That's always scary because engaging in retaliation against people who support a union, number one, retaliation is scary in general because you never know how it's going to turn out. You are always scared to walk on eggshells. It's also illegal. We would like to talk about that part because I feel like it should be known.

However, it may not. So, it is illegal to retaliate. A lot of the allegations include disciplinary action, termination, changes in work schedules, and they all target allegedly pro-union employees.  In the complaints, you also have anti-union campaigning, and I was taking a class one time in law school, and we had to do a kind of checklist of union do's and union don'ts, and we had to do an entire case study on it. 

A company that did anti-union campaigning and how they have posters that were saying like “Hey, here's why you shouldn't join the union” and “Hey, here's why unions are bad and you're not going to be represented as well” and like all of these things, because essentially you can't persuade someone to not join the union. 

You have to let people join or not join on their own free will. It's coercion. Coercion or threats  aren't allowed when it comes to the entirety of unions and campaigning in general towards or against them. 

The other one that I thought was really noteworthy was withholding benefits from unionized stores. I thought that was really interesting because it alleged Starbucks withheld raises and other benefits, which we've already seen. If you have seen a couple of the studies from the past couple of years, a couple of the studies when it comes to income have shown that raises and  other income, other methods of increasing income have been dropped. 

The ball has been dropped very heavily when it comes to certain types of employees. I thought it was really interesting to note that unions and pro-union or pro-union employees are one of those demographics, because I think whenever we're thinking about people who might get looked over for raises or even lateral moves or position changes or things like that. We're often looking at things like race. We're thinking about gender. We're thinking about, even sexuality, because those are all protected classes. That being said. One thing we don't often think about is disabilities.

One thing we often don't think about is unions. And I thought that was really interesting. Let's go back to why does this matter. Why does this matter for you and why does this matter for your business? It matters because this can happen to anybody. You don't have to have 85,000 employees for this to happen. You don't have to have a billion stores. You don't even have to have a brick and mortar. 

Your brand, your business, it can be boycotted at any time. A big reason that the boycott is happening with Starbucks right now is because of their lack of inclusion. The  big reason is their morals, their ethics do not align with their buyers.

And I think that's massive to talk about because your buyers want to be seen, they want to be heard. If you are not listening to them, if you are not here, if you are not around, if you are not in touch with what they are saying and what they are asking for, I think it is so important.  For you to understand that you will lose sales. You will lose people buying from you. And you will, above all, lose your reputation. 

So one of the things I actually looked at was, what are the impacts that this boycott so far has had on Starbucks? I've looked at some short term impacts, which we're seeing a lot more of, obviously, because it's only been six months, but we're starting to finally see some of the potential long term impacts. And the long term impacts I think are interesting. 

Because, there's two different subjects here. We're talking about unionization, but then we're talking about an entire like genocide of the people. We're talking about the unionization efforts being a long term effect. We're seeing more unions being formed. We're seeing more restorers become unionized. We're seeing more employees step up into a union. We're seeing more people get represented, and that's what people are looking for. They want representation in multiple different facets, right? The other part of that though is consumer behavior. We are really starting to see what happens when someone is not  getting what they want.

They are asking for, and it's not in a place of entitlement, because this isn't coming from a place of entitlement. There's a difference between being a “Karen” and asking for basic human decency, and there's a massive gap there on which is which. This is maybe people asking for basic human decency and then getting pissed when no one's listening.

So this is kind of what we'll see on the long term impact. Are these things actually going to continue? Are they actually going to keep going? More of the short term impacts that we've seen so far are definitely financial. The heavily impacted sales with this boycott so far.

Particularly in specific regions with specific demographics, for instance, franchise operators in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, they experienced such a drop in sales that a lot of them had to lay off employees or even close. 

Colleges with large student populations that were actively opposing the boycott, such as maybe Cornell, ended contracts with Starbucks, which severely impacted their revenue, especially because college campuses are massive. 

Whenever we're talking about Starbucks, right? I don't know about anyone else. I live on coffee, personally. I'm 99 percent of the time either drinking coffee or I'm drinking an energy drink. If you've ever seen me in life, I absolutely love Sugar Free Red Bull. This is not sponsored, please sponsor me though, dear lord. 

It just happens all the time.  It's a very, very big issue if a ton of college students are opting out. You know what I mean? And going instead to the local coffee shop, which, yay for local shops, right? Their coffee's often really good.  Then there was also a massive stock drop where the price dropped massively.

It was during the peak, which I think was considered at least so far. The peak was considered a couple months ago, and I'm recording this for March 2024. And the peak so far has been considered a couple months ago. 

That being said, the stock price actually saw a pretty big decline and it's kind of trying to make its way back. But at the end of the day, another really big thing that they had issues with was  their brand image. Their brand image has been tainted, right? 

That's one of the things that you are massively going to see overall, through pretty much any boycott that you ever deal with or that you ever see - you are massively going to see the brand image tanked. So it'd be interesting to see if that actually gets kind of bumped up or kind of fixed, I guess.

Like, how does PR deal with this? How do they shop this out? How do they kind of smooth everything? Do they? Or do they lean into maybe their villain era? I'll be interested to see. 

I think this is really important to note that this can't happen to anyone. Because it's all about, if you really look at it, it's all about how their stuff aligns, and are you/I/we/they making the same mistakes, and not listening to your customers, your buyers, your clients.

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Thank you for listening. Bye.