As a longtime labor and community organizer, Kim has spent her life fighting corporate abuse. But when fellow demonstrators at the 1999 Battle of Seattle smashed in the window of a Starbucks store, she couldn’t escape the feeling that something was wrong with the picture.
Sure, Starbucks was big, and getting bigger, but did that automatically make it evil? And wasn’t she herself an occasional Starbucks consumer? Furthermore, she was pretty sure she wasn’t the only demonstrator who favored the dark roasted brew.
Kim determined to find out the truth about Starbucks. Was it a good corporate citizen or just another corporate octopus? A union buster or a model employer? Did it care for the environment or exploit the land? Was it farmer friendly or an imperialist menace? What was the real story behind the siren song of the Starbucks mermaid?
She found that the company, like most of us, has multiple faces, both public and private. And, how it’s judged depends on who’s doing the judging. Along the way, she encountered some unexpected insights about how she and other left progressives were framing the issues.
With an open mind, good will, and a sense of humor, Kim engaged colleagues in the global and labor communities – as well as leaders and workers at Starbucks – in a spirited conversation about the world according to Starbucks. The result is an intimate and nuanced portrait of the iconic company from the inside out, and from the outside in.
Wrestling With Starbucks invites us to reflect on how we define and practice our values in the global economy from the vantage point of our morning brew and presents a refreshingly different look the company that has changed the way the world drinks coffee.
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