(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Talk about a piping-hot cuppa comeuppance.
As the Biden administration’s radical policies take a heavy toll on luxury goods like overpriced coffee, the woke corporations that stand to lose the most find themselves pivoting farther and farther to the Right.
Starbucks, notorious for its brazen virtue-signaling of left-wing causes, is now circling back to a position once monopolized by the Left until it was appropriated by former President Donald Trump: accusations of systemic vote fraud.
The company sent a letter Monday to the National Labor Relations Board accusing board members of “secretly coordinating with Union agents to arrange for ‘in-person’ voting to take place in NLRB offices during NLRB-ordered ‘mail-ballot’ elections,” and otherwise colluding with the union during recent elections whether to unionize a Kansas City-area store.
The revelation reportedly came about courtesy of an NLRB whistleblower, who alerted the Seattle-based coffee chain.
“In light of these types of misconduct by NLRB personnel, we request the Board immediately suspend all Starbucks mail-ballot elections nationwide … until there has been a thorough investigation, the outcome has been made public, and safeguards to prevent future misconduct have been implemented,” said the letter from Zabrina Jenkins, Starbucks’ acting executive vice president and general counsel, as well as company counsel Kimberly J. Doud.
The company also asked that the Aug. 16 hearing scheduled for its Overland Park, Kansas, store be stayed indefinitely pending the investigation. An order Monday to decertify that election was filed by NRLB’s general counsel, suggesting that the board agreed to the suspension.
“The regional staff, and, ultimately, the Board—will carefully and objectively consider any challenges raised through these established channels,” NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado said in a statement, according to the Washington Times.
Starbucks’s union woes began last December, when left-wing activists began targeting several New York-area stores. At times, the company itself was accused of dirty tricks in its attempt to thwart the franchises from going rogue.
NLRB statistics indicate that, since then, more than 220 Starbucks locations have voted to unionize, with 34 on the way and seven in the process of organizing elections, according to Big League Politics.
In addition to its union-busting efforts, the company also has lashed out at other aspects of the far-left agenda, notably bewailing the “defund the police” experiment in July after the resulting spike in violent crime forced it to shut down five stores in its hometown of Seattle and at least 11 others across the country.
Howard Schultz, Starbucks’s founder and interim CEO, condemned policies of far-left cities, including Portland, Ore.; Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia, Pa.; and Los Angeles, Calif., that have led to the significant uptick in crime.
“At the local, state and federal level, these governments across the country, and leaders—mayors and governors, city councils—have abdicated their responsibility in fighting crime and addressing mental illness,” Schultz reportedly said during an internal meeting.
The criticism marked a dramatic reversal from Starbuck’s earlier support for the violent, Marxist Black Lives Matter movement.
George Floyd should be alive today. We still have work to do to address systemic racism and ensure everyone has an equal chance to succeed and thrive.
Black lives matter, and we stand with our Black customers and partners. https://t.co/41WsOp2QIW pic.twitter.com/7EDDxlRIsU
— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) April 21, 2021
Schultz, a longtime Democrat, briefly flirted with the idea of running as an indepenent in the 2020 presidential election but quickly found himself to be persona non grata among both Republicans and Democrats—many of whom suspected him of having an ulterior agenda and accused him of wanting to be an election spoiler.
That election ultimately was stolen by Democrat Joe Biden, whose operatives in several key battleground states capitalized on the coronavirus pandemic to push massive mail-in voting initiatives while drastically lowering security standards such as signature requirements, voter identification and ballot deadlines that helped to maintain some semblance of election integrity.
Democrats continue to deny any significant irregularities in the 2020 election, despite strong evidence to the contrary.
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at truthsocial.com/@bensellers.
