shareholder resolution · 2020
Free Enterprise Project (National Center for Public Policy Research) at Starbucks Corporation
Asked Starbucks to issue a public report detailing the potential risks of omitting viewpoint and ideology from its written equal employment opportunity policy. The filer says its aim was to have those categories added, and framed the proposal as protecting employees with conservative views.
What happened
Result: Not approved. Voted as Proposal 4, the only shareholder proposal at the annual meeting of 18 March 2020. Starbucks' certified results report 11,939,598 for, 777,393,209 against, 15,268,711 abstaining and 187,494,578 broker non-votes. That is 1.51 percent in favour counting only votes for and against, or 1.48 percent if abstentions are included in the base. The Manhattan Institute's proxy monitor independently reports the same 1.51 percent and states that abstentions were excluded from its calculation.
We found no documented change to Starbucks' equal employment opportunity policy or reporting. By the filer's own account, Starbucks' executive vice president and general counsel Rachel Gonzalez opposed the proposal at the meeting, calling it unnecessary and not beneficial to shareholders.
Who is involved
What this campaign is about
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