Sir Tokyo Sexwale Posted March 7, 2006 Posted March 7, 2006 hmmm, maybe I'll have to remove them from the list, although I still won't drink a cup of that muck: Starbucks buys expensive beans and pays its growers?be they in Guatemala or Ethiopia?an average of 23% above the market price. A similar benevolence applies to company employees. Where other corporations seek to unload the burden of employee benefits, Starbucks gives all American employees working at least 20 hours a week a package that includes stock options (?Bean Stock?) and comprehensive health insurance. For Mr Schultz, raised in a Brooklyn public-housing project, this health insurance?which now costs Starbucks more each year than coffee?is a moral obligation. At the age of seven, he came home to find his father, a lorry-driver, in a plaster cast, having slipped and broken an ankle. No insurance, no compensation and now no job. Hence what amounts to a personal crusade. Most of America's corporate chiefs steer clear of the sensitive topic of health-care reform. Not Mr Schultz. He makes speeches, lobbies politicians and has even hosted a commercial-free hour of television, arguing for reform of a system that he thinks is simultaneously socially unjust and a burden on corporate America. Meanwhile the company pays its workers' premiums, even as each year they rise by double-digit percentages. The goal has always been ?to build the sort of company that my father was never able to work for.? By this he means a company that ?remains small even as it gets big?, treating its workers as individuals. Starbucks is not alone in its emphasis on ?social responsibility?, here
SkippyjonJones Posted March 7, 2006 Posted March 7, 2006 This post is not viewable to guests. You can sign in to your account at the login page here If you do not have an account then you can register here
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