Starbucks
From The Matrix
| Company Infobox |
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| Company name: Starbucks Corporation |
| Company type: Public (Template:Nasdaq,Template:Sehk) |
| Foundation: In 1971 across from Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington |
| Location: Seattle, Washington, USA |
| Industry: Restaurants |
| Key people: Howard Schultz, Chairman Jim Donald, President & CEO |
| # of employees: 140,000 |
| Products: Starbucks Seattle's Best Coffee Frappuccino Tazo Tea Torrefazione Italia Coffee Hear Music Pasqua Coffee |
Revenue:  $7.786 billion USD (2006)
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| Net income: |
| Homepage: Starbucks.com |
Starbucks is a giant multinational chain of gourmet coffee shops, often serving desserts and serving as a center for socializing and intellectual discussion, particularly among students and young urban professionals. Corporate headquarters are in Seattle, Washington. The company was named after Starbuck, a character in Moby Dick.
The first Starbucks opened in Seattle in 1971, at its still-operating location across from Pike Place Market. Entrepreneur Howard Schultz joined the company in 1982 and started the Il Giornale coffee bar chain in 1985, whose outlets were rebranded as Starbucks in 1987. That same year, Starbucks opened its first locations in Vancouver, British Columbia (at Waterfront Station) and Chicago, Illinois.
By the time of its initial public offering on the stock market in 1992, it had grown to 165 outlets. In April 2003 Starbucks added 150 new outlets in one day, by completing the purchase of Seattle's Best Coffee and Torrefazione Italia from AFC Enterprises. As of May 2003, Starbucks operated more than 6,400 locations worldwide. Stung by criticism of the conditions in which its coffee was grown, the company introduced a line of fair trade products, although the majority of its sales are not fair trade. Starbucks is also known for providing even part-time employees with healthcare benefits and stock options.
Starbucks' success in the US market has not always been replicated around the world, as it has faced stiff competition in locations where existing coffee shops and restaurants already serve a variety of high-quality coffees, and from a number of retailers which emulate Starbucks' business model (often adding a local twist).
This rapid proliferation of the company has been the subject of much comment and occasional parody, for instance in the Austin Powers films, The Simpsons, and South Park.
T-Mobile has a deal with Starbucks to provide Wi-Fi "hotspots."
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[edit] Company profile
Starbucks' corporate headquarters are in Seattle, Washington, United States. Currently the members of the company's board of directors are Howard Schultz, Jim Donald, Barbara Bass, Howard Behar, Bill Bradley, Mellody Hobson, Olden Lee, James Shennan, Jr., Javier Teruel, Myron Ullman, III, and Craig Weatherup.
Starbucks U.S. Brands, LLC, is a Starbucks owned company that currently holds and owns the property rights to approximately 120 Starbucks Coffee Company patents and trademarks. It is located at 2525 Starbucks Way in Minden, Nevada.[1] Like most companies, Starbucks defends its trademarks.
Starbucks entered the music industry in 1999 with the acquisition of Hear Music, and the film industry in 2006 with the creation of Starbucks Entertainment. Starbucks Entertainment was one of the producers of the 2006 film Akeelah and the Bee. Retail stores heavily advertised the film before its release.
[edit] Labor
Since 2004, workers at seven Starbucks stores in New York City have joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) as the Starbucks Workers Union.[2] According to a Starbucks Union press release, since then, the union membership has begun expanding to Chicago and Maryland.[3] On March 7, 2006, the IWW and Starbucks agreed to a National Labor Relations Board settlement in which three Starbucks workers were granted almost $2,000 in back wages and two fired employees were offered reinstatement.[4][5][6] According to the Starbucks Union, on November 24 2006, IWW members picketed Starbucks locations in more than 50 cities around the world in countries including Australia, Canada, Germany, Great Britain and New Zealand, as well as U.S. cities including New York, Chicago, Minneapolis and San Francisco,[7] to protest the firing of five Starbucks Workers Union organizers by Starbucks and to demand their reinstatement.
Some Starbucks baristas in Canada,[8] Australia and New Zealand,[9] and the United States[10] belong to a variety of unions. In 2005, Starbucks paid out $165,000 to eight employees at its Kent, Washington, roasting plant to settle charges that they had been retaliated against for being pro-union. At the time, the plant workers were represented by the IUOE. Starbucks admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement.[2]
A Starbucks strike happened in Auckland, New Zealand, on November 23, 2005.[9] Organized by Unite Union, workers sought secure hours, a minimum wage of NZ$12 an hour, and the abolition of youth rates. The company settled with the Union in 2006, resulting in pay increases, increased security of hours, and an improvement in youth rates.[11]
According to Starbucks Chairman Howard Schulz, "If they had faith in me and my motives, they wouldn't need a union." According to The Seattle Times, "The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 286 had trouble with Starbucks at its Kent roasting plant, where the union no longer represents workers".[2] (see also WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity).
[edit] Coffee bean market
Although it has endured much criticism for its purported monopoly on the global coffee-bean market, Starbucks only accounts for roughly two percent of global coffee production[1]. In 2000, the company introduced a line of fair trade products[12] and now offers three options for the socially conscious coffee drinker. According to Starbucks, they purchased 4.8 million pounds of Certified Fair Trade coffee in fiscal year 2004 and 11.5 million pounds in 2005. They have become the largest buyer of Certified Fair Trade coffee in North America (10% of the global market) and the only company licensed to sell Certified Fair Trade coffee in 23 countries.[13] Transfair USA,[14] the only third-party certifier of Fair Trade Certified coffee in the United States, has noted the impact Starbucks has made in the area of Fair Trade and coffee farmer's lives by saying:
Groups such as Global Exchange are calling for Starbucks to further increase its sales of fair trade coffees. However, fair trade certification can cost $20,000 to $30,000, and many growers are unwilling or unable to pay for certification. As a result, the supply of fair trade coffee is increasing slowly.
[edit] Environmental
[edit] Social History
[edit] Intellectual Property
In 2000, San Francisco cartoonist Kieron Dwyer was sued by Starbucks for copyright and trademark infringement after creating a parody of its siren logo and putting it on coffee mugs, t-shirts, and stickers that he sold on his website and at comic book conventions. Dwyer felt that since his work was a parody it was protected by his right to free speech under U.S. law. The judge agreed that Dwyer's work was a parody and thus enjoyed constitutional protection; however, he was forbidden from financially "profiting" from using a "confusingly similar" image of the Starbucks siren logo. Dwyer is currently allowed to display the image as an expression of free speech, but he can no longer sell it.[16]
In 2003, Starbucks successfully sued a Shanghai competitor in China for trademark infringement, because that chain stores used a green-and-white logo with a similar sounding Chinese name.[17]
However, in 2005, Starbucks lost a trademark infringement case against a smaller coffee vendor in South Korea that operates coffee stations under the name and style Starpreya. The company, Elpreya, says Starpreya is named after the Norse goddess, Freja, with the letters of that name changed to ease pronunciation by Koreans. The court rejected the Seattle-based retailer's claim that the logo of Starpreya is too similar to the famous Starbucks logo.
[edit] Activism Against
[edit] Critical Websites
[edit] External link
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