Starbucks shareholders push to oust board members over stalled union talks

Starbucks shareholders are pushing to region 2 committee members astatine the institution who they reason person contributed to stalling the java chain’s long-fought-over national drive.

The SOC Investment Group, Trillium Asset Management, Merseyside Pension Fund, the non-profit Shareholder Association for Research and Education (Share), and the New York authorities and New York City comptrollers wrote a missive to Starbucks shareholders to ballot “no” connected the re-election of committee members Jørgen Vig Knudstorp and Beth Ford astatine Starbucks’s yearly shareholders gathering connected 25 March.

More than 680 Starbucks stores person voted to signifier unions since the barista-led organizing run started successful 2021. The national has reached 34 tentative agreements with Starbucks, but the institution has not reached a azygous last agreement.

Related: Striking Starbucks workers impulse customers to delete java chain’s app

Starbucks workers began an unfair labour signifier onslaught astatine the java concatenation successful November 2025, escalating up to the holidays successful December 2025 with respective 1000 workers connected strike. The national has since tapered down the fig of workers connected onslaught and pushed campaigns for the nationalist to unit the company, with actions specified arsenic deleting the Starbucks app, until a archetypal declaration is reached.

Brian Niccol, Starbucks’s CEO, pledged to “engage constructively and successful bully faith” erstwhile helium took the apical occupation successful 2024. But critics reason the institution has since gone backmost connected those pledges.

In their letter, the shareholders reason Knudstorp, erstwhile CEO of the Lego Group, and Ford, CEO of the Land O’Lakes cultivation cooperative, carnivore work for Starbucks’s ongoing labour dispute.

Knudstorp and Ford person “had labour relations, committee structure, and capitalist engagement responsibilities implicit the applicable clip period. Shareholders should measure their show against those responsibilities,” the shareholders wrote.

Tejal Patel, enforcement manager of the SOC Investment Group, a Starbucks shareholder affiliated with labour unions, said: “There was a displacement successful 2025 which raised renewed concerns for us. Labor disputes person continued. Bargaining has not produced a archetypal contract, and risks associated with workforce relations person intensified alternatively than diminished.”

“The abrupt U-turn connected labour relations oversight by Starbucks’ Board is inconsistent with the company’s turnaround strategy and commitments – and changes person not been explained to shareholders,” the shareholders wrote successful the letter.

Two proxy firms person besides warned Starbucks shareholders that the institution whitethorn beryllium neglecting fiscal and reputational risks from labour disputes.