Common sense would perhaps dictate that a company sporting a managerial culture of pathological lying as the default way of dealing with stakeholders must inevitably go under at some point. Kant’s categorical imperative insists that mendacity is unethical, for it violates the non-contradictory law of reason. What would the Prussian Kant say, however, to the good Germans who lied to NAZI Jew-hunters about hiding the enemies of the state? As laudable as such lies are, unsavory business managers seem instinctually wired to take advantage of the slippery slope by ignoring the rationale of avoiding extreme harm. What begins as a trickle can become a deluge. Perhaps that is what happened at Starbucks.
In late October, 2022, the director of the U.S. National
Labor Relations Board “accused Starbucks of threatening to withhold benefits
and wage increases from workers if they unionized; selectively enforcing work
policies against union supporters; disciplining or firing workers who were
activists; and failing to bargain in good faith.”[1]
Starbucks had closed a store in Ithaca, New York. The lack of good faith can be
seen in the Congressional testimony of Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ CEO, in 2023.
He sanctimoniously “admitted” that people he had spoken with could erroneously
infer intimidation. In other words, it’s on the other guy. Such toxic
pomposity easily belies a mere patina of portrayed honesty.
NLRB officials claimed in 2022, The “company has repeatedly
broken the law by firing pro-union employees, cutting their hours and offering
pay hikes and other benefits to those who decline to unionize.”[2]
Least the company’s management’s denials of these claims be believed,
fast-forward to April, 2023, when it was revealed that the company had lied
that negative publicity and a related strike played no role in the company’s decision
to permanently close another store in Ithaca.
The story begins back in April, 2022, when Starbucks’ public-relations
firm notified its client that employees “went on strike due to repeated grease
trap spills that caused an unsafe environment and lack of action from management.”[3]
The lack of action regarding a known safety hazard at a store that the company had
written had the “strongest real estate trade position in this area” such that “any
relocation would be inferior” points to a single-minded and expedient orientation
to money.[4]
Such a mentality is ripe for pro-union votes. A managerial culture of mendacity
just adds fuel to the flames.
Andrew Trull, a company spokesman, claimed, “Media attention
had no bearing on our decision to close the store.”[5]
In an internal email, however, Denise Nelsen, senior vice president of U.S.
operations, wrote, “We have to solve these condition issues because we also
keep getting media on the store condition there.”[6]
A direct contradiction! In symbolic logic, A and not-A cannot both be true. A
barista at the store at the time said regarding the closing of the lucrative
store, “It was retaliation for the strike we went on because we were being
forced to work in unsafe conditions. They didn’t care [before]. They cared all
of a sudden now when we’re making national news.”[7]
Admittedly, negative publicity can hurt the bottom-line. I venture to say
nonetheless that the instinctual urge to retaliate, which Nietzsche claimed is
out of control in the weak who seek to dominate, trumps the otherwise-hegemonic
money-orientation in Starbucks’ managerial culture. The propensity to fabricate
rather than tell the truth serves both the power-aggrandizing and economizing
motives, especially when they are extreme urges out of control (i.e., not
mastered, or channeled by the individual).
The culture of mendacity in Starbucks’ managerial cadre reaches
even the store-manager level. I know this from personal experience. At a
Starbucks’ store in April, 2023, a store manager pointed to the last remaining
seat. “It’s right below an air-duct that blows cold air.” I had been there in
January. “We can adjust that for you,” the manager lied. “I though the
temperature of stores is centrally controlled,” I countered. “Yes, it is; it
reduces our carbon footprint.” He gave no outward sign that he had just
contradicted himself, which can be construed as a lie on top of a lie. Perhaps
he was assuming that customers are idiots and would not be likely to put two
and two together. Well, I did, but I was polite enough not to tell him that I
knew that he had just lied to me. Instead, I went after the accuracy of his
claim that centralized control is environmentally friendly. “Well, I have lived
in Phoenix, Arizona, where your stores are generally known to feel like
refrigerators even when it is 116F degrees. I’d say that’s a pretty big
footprint, wouldn’t you?” He stood there silent, like an idiot. The dumb shoes
were on a different foot.
Meanwhile, employees of that store kept to their script—that
they like their store manager so they would not vote to unionize. When on one
occasion I overheard a shift-manager say that the company’s management had lied
about giving the employees an additional day off, he was silent when I asked
him if he still liked the management so much he would not vote to strike. He
pretended like I had not overheard him, which itself is a kind of a lie. Even
the employees, who are in no sense of the word “partners” as the company’s head
management pretends and publicizes, lie to customers.
Lastly, when I was living in Arizona, I went to a Starbucks in area of Tempe north of the Salt River, which the city of Tempe lies is a lake even though it looks like any other river. Six police employees on their break on the 4th of July will wandering around the customer area between tables. I approached a Starbucks employee to complain, as I was not used to looking up from my laptop and seeing so many guns passing by at close-range. She refused to act. Then when the group of guns were blocking the counter where drinks are available, I reapproached her and she finally decided to do something. She politely asked the police to hang out away from the bar. She was met with bloated egos, one of which, with his back to the customer area, kept turning his head to give us suspicious looks.
Laura Ingram of Fox News had decided that I must be a
criminal. For its part, Starbucks sent in a vice president, who directly or
indirectly told The New York Times that I must be “anxious” and that police of
any number whatsoever are welcome in any Starbucks store. Considering the
retaliation against employees, or “partners,” who have held strikes or sought
to unionize, it is interesting that the vice president capitulated to the local
police union—even scapegoating a customer in doing so. I wonder how many
customers trust the company and its management; any such trust would surely not
be deserved.
The esteemed Starbucks experience, which the company advertised at the time, apparently includes being thrown under the bus (i.e., sacrificed) for making a request that might upset the company’s cosy relationship with fellow power-aggrandizers. Mendacious birds of prey often fly together, for they understand each other, just as alcoholics and drug addicts do. Using people, whether for retaliation or more money, violates Kant’s moral imperative that rational beings (including us, even as we irrationally over-populate and, in doing so, risk even our own extinction) treat other such beings not just as means, but also as ends in themselves. Kant was insistent and adamant: Telling lies violates this moral requirement of what it means ultimately to be human—to partake in rational nature.
Furthermore, as Nietzsche emphasizes in his Genealogy of Morals, an unmastered and excessive instinctual urge of resentment, especially of the strong, and indeed of the ensuing retaliation too, is a mark of being weak. The strong are advised to keep their distance from the new birds of prey. Hence, job-seekers should avoid toxic managerial cultures if possible, and at the very least be on the lookout for the telltale signs—the red flags. A pattern of telling lies is such a flag, hence it is significant when a direct contradiction can be exposed. (Potential) customers should take notice too, though the want of local alternatives can make it difficult, practically speaking, to avoid the chain. Unfettered choices require a competitive market, which as the activities of companies such as Standard Oil, Walmart, and Facebook demonstrate, can be difficult to be maintained even in a republic.
See the booklet: "Bucking Starbucks' Star."
See the essay: "Starbucks Capitulates to an Overzealous Police Union in Spite of In-Store Intimidation."
2. Ibid.
3. Dave Jamieson, “A Starbucks Closed Abruptly—And Its Workers Say It Was Retaliation,” The Huffington Post, April 29, 2023.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
