A Venti Stand

By Jeff Simpson

H/T Forbes:

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz recently voiced his support Washington’s state’s referendum backing gay marriage.  Due to Starbucks support of equal rights for all, the right wing went into their typical boycott mode!   However Schultz did not back down, instead gave the right wing founder of "Corporate Morality Action Center" a lesson in morality: AND economics:

Last year Starbucks announced its support for Washington’s state’s referendum backing gay marriage, and in response the National Organization for Marriage launched a boycott of the coffee chain.
“In the first full quarter after this boycott was announced, our sales and our earnings, shall we say politely, were a bit disappointing,” said the shareholder, Tom Strobhar, whom the Huffington Post identifies at the founder of the anti-gay marriage Corporate Morality Action Center.

Was Schultz taken aback? Not in the least. He responded, “Not every decision is an economic decision. Despite the fact that you recite statistics that are narrow in time, we did provide a 38% shareholder return over the last year. I don’t know how many things you invest in, but I would suspect not many things, companies, products, investments have returned 38% over the last 12 months. Having said that, it is not an economic decision to me. The lens in which we are making that decision is through the lens of our people. We employ over 200,000 people in this company, and we want to embrace diversity. Of all kinds.”

 Wow a right wing hypocrite being exposed for citing misleading statistics and proving his right wing view of the world is bad for business!   Schultz was not done with just delivering that message though, he went for the close:

Schultz replied bluntly that Starbucks's endorsement of marriage equality wasn't about making money, but about the principle of diversity.

“If you feel, respectfully, that you can get a higher return than the 38 percent you got last year, it’s a free country. You can sell your shares of Starbucks and buy shares in another company. Thank you very much," Schultz said, to applause from the audience.

Lesson delivered and even for less than it costs to buy a Peppermint Mocha!  Of course the unhinged right is now trying to boycott Starbucks, not understanding where the "All men are created equal" comes from! 

As for Howard Schulz, I kinda like the guy!  

Drop The Pig

Management at the Piggly Wiggly in Sheboygan took a page out of Scott Walker's playbook and refused to negotiate a new contract with its union. As soon as the old contract ended, they started to claim there was their version of a fiscal emergency and started slashing employee hours. This was grieved and won by the unions.

However, despite winning an injunction on an appeal, the company is now threatening to close the store and lay off over a hundred people. The union has asked for the stores financial accounts to show the need. So far, there's been no opening of the books, just a lot of bluster from the company and the store's manager.

The reason that they don't want to open their books is because then they'd have to explain why there isn't a financial need to break the workers' backs except for pure, unmitigated greed:

Earlier this year, company officials said that heightened competition from non-union grocery stores in Sheboygan had placed increased pressure on the south-side Piggly Wiggly. New Pick'n Save and Festival Foods groceries have opened nearby in the past year.

Despite that, David Livingston, a Waukesha-based grocery analyst, said he was shocked by the announcement, as the Piggly Wiggly store had historically been one of the company's top performing locations in the state, though he figures rifts with the union and increased competition may have changed that.

"It's always surprising when you have a nice store, doing historically well, that's suddenly closing," Livingston said. "It's just unfortunate."

The company's announcement to shutter the store follows what's been a long and increasingly bitter fight between the company and the employees' union, which has filed more than 120 unfair labor practice allegations against Piggly Wiggly Midwest.

We know that the manager is trying to bluster his way out of this by two things.

One, he's been running the most successful Piggly Wiggly store in the region. Things don't go belly up that fast, even in Fitzwalkerstan.

Secondly, his stated concern of competition is rubbish since Pick'N'Save is a union shop as well. They have to pay the same wages as Piggly Wiggly. If the Pig's manager says he can't compete on a level playing ground, it shows that he's either lying or or unbelievably incompetent.

I know that Charlie Sykes and other right wing nut jobs have been trying to pin this on the unions, but the fact is that this is nothing more than greed and attempted union busting by the manager. If there was a real issue with being competitive, the manager would open his books to prove his case, as is required by labor laws.  Then he could negotiate for the concessions he is seeking.

We can help our union brothers and sisters out, even if we aren't in Sheboygan.  All we have to do is call the local Piggly Wiggly and tell them that we will stop shopping at their store if they don't call the Sheboygan manager and tell him to sit down and negotiate in good faith.  Then follow through with it.  I'll be calling the Piggly Wiggly store that I go to and doing just that.

Hero Has No Hero Worship For Walker

Does anyone respectable stand with Scott Walker since his assault on the working people of Wisconsin?

Definitely no heroes do, and not Jeff Skiles:

Jeff Skiles, the co-pilot in the famous "Miracle on the Hudson";landing in January 2009, has been involved in the budget protests that engulfed Madison in recent weeks. 

On Tuesday, he took another big step, choosing to withdraw what he said was hundreds of thousands of  dollars of his own money from M&I Bank to protest the actions of bank executives there who backed Gov. Scott Walker. 

Skiles said Wednesday that he put the money in other financial institutions, and did not technically close his M&I accounts. 

"They have supported Gov. Walker and I wanted to send a message to them," Skiles said.

It's one thing to stand up for principles.  It's wholly another to be so adamant that one won't listen to the people any more (not that he ever did).