Interim CEO Howard Schultz said it’s time to redirect funds to «invest more profit into our people and our stores.»
Starbucks’ new interim CEO Howard Schultz said Monday the coffee chain will suspend its share repurchase program to «invest more profit into our people and our stores.» The pivot in strategy comes just three weeks after Starbucks announced that Schultz, who bought the company in 1987 and led it for more than three decades, would be until it found a permanent CEO. Since that announcement, analysts and experts have speculated that Schultz was being brought back to help the company fight a rising worker rights campaign that has seen six of its stores, with at least 140 more in 27 states filing petitions for union elections. Two weeks ago, baristas and other, the first such vote in the city where Starbucks originated. Starbucks has 9,000 company-owned stores in the U.S. Schultz’s blog post on Monday was filled with references to «partners» — what the company calls employees.
