Whats the question . Im gonna tie it in here. Name one policy because you already brought him up already every morning. Name one policy that thank you all very much for your patients. Its an important vote that we had to cast. We are now gonna begin the second panel and we are delighted to have an excellent panel. Which will include maggie carter, jason saxton, sharon block, bradley byrne, rachel kristol. Our first witness is maggie carter. Miss carter begin working at starbucks parttime four years ago. To get Health Benefits and pay while attending university of tennessee. Her story knoxville, tennessee, was the first our bookstore in the south to unionize. Since then, miss carter has helped workers of numerous other stories organized. Im delighted to have you here to talk about her experience. Miss carter. Thanks for being with us. Turn the mic on thank you so much, mister chairman. My name is maggie carter. Im a single mom to a beautiful eightyearold boy named colson. Being his mom is the absolute greatest gift of my life. He is why i ended up at starbucks. The only place to offer me parttime benefits and what i thought would be flexible scheduling while in school. As a lesbian, i was also drawn to starbucks by its reputation as a progressive employer. I started working at starbucks in jackson tennessee in may of 2019. I was paid 8. 35 an hour. Then in march of 2020 came. And it felt as if the world shut down. Just not at starbucks. I worked consistently from day one of the pandemic because as a single mom, i didnt have a choice. In april 2020, i told my manager i needed to move from jackson to knoxville. It wasnt until two months later she responded telling me i had only 48 hours to decide between quitting and being rehired in knoxville, losing all of my seniority and benefits or taking a leave of absence without pay and crossing my fingers to see if i would be transferred to a knoxville store. Because of covid, at the company had frozen the normally easy transfer process. I couldnt risk losing my benefits so i chose the second option. But it meant that i went without pay for three months. Luckily, i was able to begin work at a knoxville store in august 2020. The whole situation was a punch to the gut and the emotional impact of the disrespect i felt ultimately contributed to my belief in the need to organize a union. In october 2021, starbucks announce it starting pay with an increase to 15 an hour almost a year later. I scoured the internet searching starbucks wages, benefits, pay increases and i learned about starbucks workers organizing. I share this information with my coworkers and we decided to stand together to file for an election on christmas eve. We were proud to be the first or in the south. It wasnt without an epic fight because starbucks resisted us every step of the way. Just five days after announcing our union drive, our regional director drove to our story from out of state and was working alongside my partners, attorney to make drinks. Instead the first time and entire time of the company that made a regional director in person. Partners suddenly started getting discipline for minor dress Code Violations or being five or so minutes late. Every day, it felt as if there was a concerted effort to build a case against partners who showed even the smallest bit of support for the union. Days prior to ballots being that out for the election, miniatures closer store for our long periods. Most during peak operating times, to hold impromptu captive audience meetings. It felt like the company was suddenly paying full attention to us and were willing to throw absolutely anything at us to deter us from organizing. We won our vote when you are go today. March 29th, 2022. Since then, we made every attempt to try to bargain in good faith with the company. Starbucks walked out on our stores only scheduled bargaining session after just 30 minutes. On may 3rd, the Company Announced that partners who are organizing or had already unionized would not receive a series of important benefit increases the nonunion stores will be granted. My partners along with thousands of partners across the country still do not have access to these benefits. Nor do we have a company that is willing to sit across the table with us in park and for them. This is part of my Stories Campaign story but if you look to the 7500 plus members of starbucks workers united, you will find thousands of stories that detail similar or more grotesque accounts of starbucks behavior during their scorch earth Union Busting campaign. My coworker michel eisen stated perfectly when she testified before the house. It should not take an active bravery to ensure you have a voice at work. Data laws allow so much room for companies to harshly assert themselves. Unequal resources combined with a balanced Power Dynamics ensure that the companies voice will often be louder than the collective voice of workers. Schultz has made a career selling the idea of offering benefits to parttime workers because he wanted to operate a different kind of company. I am a single mother working in tirelessly for this company for four years and im certainly not alone in feeling nothing but left behind during a time where everything we knew about the world was uncertain. You cannot be pro partner and anti union. Its well past time for the company to bargain in good faith. Help us hold them accountable. Thank you for allowing partners to have a seat at this table alongside former ceo Howard Schulz because that is significantly more than he was willing to offer. Two starbucks new ceo, lacks you have an opportunity to try to different course. To truly make starbucks the different kind of company schultz promised but failed ethically to produce. This is a chance for your company to stop its Unprecedented Campaign of Union Busting and instead partner with us, your socalled partners, and our union to build a company that truly lives up to its stated progressive values. Thank you so much. Thank you, miss carter. Our next witness is jason saxton. Who is a former starbucks shift supervisor. Mr. Sachs and sort of working a starbucks in augusta georgia in 2019. He and his coworkers successfully unionized their store in april 2020 to an inch of i20 to, after today strike he was illegally fired by starbucks. Mr. Sexton, thanks for being with us. Thank you, chairman sanders. My name is jason thaxton. I am a wrongfully fired starbucks worker from augusta georgia. That sort of the company in 2019. Hired on as the ship supervisor. In time, i became to go to not only for baristas but management as well. I was recognized for made it occasion and hard work as well as the positive and Infectious Energy and environment i created for partners and customers. I even one partner of the quarter. My time at starbucks wasnt all what bad. I met my amazing wife who is now the mother of our twoyearold, eva. I got to be there for the customers who relied on us during the pandemic and support my coworkers whose families were also going through some really tough times. Being a disabled veteran with osteoarthritis of the spine from a time of the coast guard, i felt it was my duty to serve my country again. In order to make my workplace more equitable but also so that my work family could have what they needed to survive. We face many failed and broken systems working a starbucks when we begin to organize the union. We saw the starbucks failed we chose to live up to them and challenge the status quo. In late 2021, when we started to hear about starbucks workers in buffalo organizing a union, i thought we need this to. I reached out to starbucks workers united to see how we could get started organizing in our store. And began talking to my coworkers. We kept organizing despite increasing retaliation and surveillance. The company said hire a managers to restore and felicia was just to surveil us. The regional director who drove down from atlanta was in our store regularly with the district manager. We were disciplined for minor things that happened in the story like being written out for being two minutes late, which had never happened before. Terminations increased to. Partner who experienced Sexual Harassment from one of our managers was terminated after reporting it. They held captive audience meetings, they call them oneonones. For us to have all of the facts. But the partners were out numbered every time. In these meetings, partners were being threatened with losing their benefits of a joined the union. Which made them feel intimidated and scared. In february of 2022, we heard about the high profile case of retaliation in termination against a group of mostly workers of color. Theyre finding had a Chilling Effect on me and my coworkers as we saw the company portraying the value despite our fears, we were inspired by the courage and power of the memphis seven impelled for our election a month later in march 2022. A week after we filed, they were placed a sympathetic for miniature but it backfired as more people got on board with the union. In april, our store won our election by a landslide in 26 to 5. Despite all of the threats and intimidation. Starbucks retaliation and Union Busting ramped up even more after we won our election. We were constantly being watched in miniatures with an intimate conversations through our headsets. Store hours were constantly changing and ours kept getting cut. People were fired right on the shop for. They fired seven of our union members, two of them were shove supervisors. Two partners requested medical and maternity leave, management refused to sign off on their leave and they were terminated. Several people quit including my wife. Some of us were told that we should look for another job. In july, i met today unfairly will purchase strike and delivered our demands. A month later, i was fired for supposedly being disruptive. I did not receive any right of or discipline and there was no investigation. I was fired after organizing like so Many Union Leaders across the country. I have filed unfair labor practice charge. With the end of our bcc to be reinstated at starbucks. Starbucks and big corporations have a lot of power and money. And they are willing to pull out all the stops to deny workers a voice and a seat at the table in a union. Thats why im thrilled to be here today to have witnessed firsthand Howard Schultz being held to account for his companys illegal behavior. We are coming together to demand better pay, Affordable Health coverage, and a stronger safety procedures. I am proud to be a leader of this new labor movement. We are taking on Corporate Power in fighting for all of us. One day, my daughters gonna be able to look at her dead on the internet and find out that i fought for a Better Future for every starbucks worker and for all working people. I know shell also read that we took on one of the most powerful corporations and one. Thats why i keep fighting. And that makes everything worth it. Mr. Sexton, thank you very much. Our third witness is sharon professor executive director of the center for labor and its just hover law school. The 20, years shes held culebra policy positions across the legislative and executive branches of federal government including here at the Health Committee and in the mlr be. Thanks so much for being with us. Thank you, chairman sanders. Ranking member cassidy. For inviting me to testify today. It feels a little bit like coming home. I want to make clear that first im testifying in my personal capacity and not as a representative of harvard law school. In light of my long service with the nlrb i like to start my testimony by recognizing the great work done by the career staff with regard to the starbucks campaign. Handling hundreds of cases over the past 18 months. I know them firsthand to be consummate professionals and dedicated public servants. Next, i like to address the purpose of the National Labor relations act. So that we understand the consequences when an employer denies workers the rights guaranteed by the act. It does not guarantee that workers will be represented by a union. Or that if they are so represented, that they will secure particular outcomes at the bargaining table. Instead, it guarantees to them a fair process to decide for themselves whether they want to exercise these rights. It is always the workers who make these decisions. It is not the employers decision. Thought of in this way, you can say that the nra establishes the rule of law for the workplace. And so the question for this hearing is whether starbucks respected this workplace rule of law. Or has undermined the ability of workers to be treated unfairly in their quest to decide for themselves whether they want to union representation. Id like to make three main points in the remainder of my testimony. First, the scope of starbucks violations alleged and found so far is beyond the scope of the anti Union Campaigns that i have witnessed during my career at the labor lawyer. Second, that these violations should not be understood as isolated acts but rather should be viewed as a coordinated campaign to stifle Union Activity across the company. Finally, it is critical that this kind of egregious conduct is taken seriously. Because otherwise, it will send a message to workers across the economy that their rights are as disposable as a paper starbucks cup. First, all address the scope of the violations. As you have heard already, starbucks is facing more than 500 allegations that it is violated the nra. And already, career board agents have found merit in more than half of those charges. In addition, for Board Members from both Political Parties and seven career Administrative Law judges have concluded that starbucks has committed violations of the act. While its at least become quite common. For companies to respond hostility and often unlawfully to organizing campaigns by their workers. Im not aware of another company in recent years that has had this many allegations leveled against it or this many allegations found to have merit. The egregiousness of many of the violations also makes this campaign stand out. For decades, for firing a pro Union Workers during an organizing campaign as a whole mark violation. That is a violation that is likely to have significant impact, not just on the worker who was fired, but also on the organizing rights of coworkers. Already, the general counsel and ailed shades have found more than 20 starbucks employees have been fired because of their Union Activity. These discharges another hallmark violations found its conduct that goes to the very heart of workers rights under the act. In the words of the al j. Who reviewed starbucks and a Union Campaign in buffalo, starbucks has engaged in egregious and widespread misconduct demonstrating a general disregard for employees fundamental rights. That observation leads to my second point. What has happened at starbucks is not just a collection of individual violations. It looks more like a Company Campaign to stop the Workers Campaign in its tracks. Each time the company commits a new violation in new location or a new stage in the unions campaign, this communicating to all of us workers that the rights according to them by the law can be defeated. That the company is the resources, the whale and the stamina to undermine the exercise of their rights at every turn. Therefore, im also concerned about the wider message that starbucks into Union Campaign sends. Workers across the country especially low wage workers have also been inspired by what the starbucks priestess have achieved over the past 18 months. But what do these workers and the public think when they see that starbucks is willing to break the law that protects these rights hundreds of times. I commend the committee for holding this hearing to show that you take seriously workers rights to organize and to sit at a bargaining table if they choose. Even if their employer is a huge company that really doesnt want them to have a union. Its a bedrock of our democracy. That the law applies to everyone including the most powerful. I believe that much is at stake in ensuring that starbucks workers rights to unionize are protected and respected. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Senator cassidys voting. I am going to introduce his witnesses. Former representative, bradley burns, served four terms in congress and has more than 40 years of experience as a labor and employee for a private practice. Mr. Byrne, thank you for being with us. Thank you senator sanders. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I have submitted a written statement. I wont read that to you. I do not represent starbucks. I did not have a position about whether they have or have not committed unfair labor violations. I do not have a position on whether they should or should not be organized. I believe it is up to the workers. I trust the wisdom of the workers at the top stories to make those decisions in a properly conducted election. Im here because i represent a whistleblower, a longtime professional employee at the National Nation labor who has gone forward at the Inspector General to information that there have been significant irregularities, violation of the neutrality of the organization of the agency during at least one such election. A lot of that matter . The process that we follow in these elections is very important. And the previous speaker said, it is to make sure that the employees make a free and uncoerced decision. It is not to protect the management of the company, it is not to protect the union. It is certainly not to protect the nlrb. The nlrb is required to conduct what we call Laboratory Conditions from the time a petition is filed to the time we have an election. That means you have got to make sure that the voting environment is free. There is not any coercio