After several decades spent rising to the top of the coffee shop food chain, Starbucks (SBUX) - Get Starbucks Corporation Report is currently grappling with some existential questions.
The Seattle-based coffee giant is seeing more and more employees push for unionization, and the company's attempts to ward it off have spiraled into a PR crisis.
As mobilization efforts and calls for other changes to employee structure started gathering steam last fall, Starbucks announced that it would be raising the wage of all its American employees to $15 per hour by the summer of 2022.
During its most recent earnings call, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced that the company will also invest an additional $200 million into its workforce and increase wages at its stores further.
But Schultz said that the price hikes will only apply to Starbucks locations that have not unionized.
Since the first Starbucks location in Buffalo, N.Y. voted to unionize in December, that number has grown to nearly 50 stores across the country.
Employees still routinely bring up understaffing, faulty equipment and underpayment despite record Starbucks sales of $29 billion in 2021.
"Today, we take further steps to modernize our pay and benefits vision for our partners with further investments in wage and [...] in September, we will share additional initiatives we are planning for Starbucks partners," Schultz said during the May 3 call.
On top of the promised $15 an...
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