Making billionaires sweat

And some other big news!

Welcome to a premium Tuesday evening edition of Progressives Everywhere!

Natalie is off tonight, so I’ll be taking you on this evening’s journey. I’m going to give you a few updates on the game-changing union drives that I’ve been covering so closely and wrote about in the Sunday newsletter, then deliver some very big news updates.

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Reviled former basketball team owner Howard Schultz kicked off his third tour of duty as CEO of Starbucks on Monday with an “open forum” event that was broadcast to employees across the world… and me.

The bits I saw of Schultz’s grand return felt like a mix of cult, multi-level marketing scheme, and the most grating TED Talk ever recorded. The comments that Starbucks moderators allowed to appear on the webcast’s sidebar conveyed such a twisted devotion to the billionaire’s prosperity gospel.

Despite the event’s billing as an open forum, Schultz appeared to have taken zero questions from employees; the only time he called on anyone from the audience to speak was he asked them to repeat the key points of his speech back to him. That bizarre interlude came about midway through the session, signaling that people really ought to listen to what came next.