IT'S NOT LIKE THE COFFEE'S THAT GREAT EITHER

Over 5,000 Starbucks shareholders packed into Seattle's McCaw Hall yesterday for their annual general meeting, and to bid a fond farewell to outgoing CEO Orin Smith.

Who knew that a little coffee shop near Pike Place Market would grow up to become the Monolith from Stanley Kubrick's 2001 with a bad case of the shakes? Since going public in 1992, Starbucks has globally saturated itself by bullying itself into urban neighbourhoods and shoving aside the mom-and-pop espresso pushers, staking its full roasted claim in shopping malls and brewing up institutional sales with universities, airlines, department stores, theatres, and anywhere else people might like something with cream and sugar. The downtown Vancouver Sears has a Starbucks on the main floor, while at the Starbucks corporate headquarters overlooking Elliot Bay, there's a Sears. Odd.

One would think that a company that's provided its original investors with a 480% rate of return might be able to share the wealth with the people who actually grind the beans, run the cappucino steamer, and endure the abuse of narcisstic yuppies who's double-tall non-fat isn't tall or non-fat enough. Nope, the love affair between Starbucks and its millions of patrons myopic enough to hand them an interest free loan (i.e. The Starbucks Card, the grandaddy of so-called 'gift' cards), does not extend to the employees, many of whom have been looking to inject a double shot of reality into the relationship by forming a union.

Starbucks may have supported John Kerry's bid for the White House while other corporate behemoths like Wal-Mart backed George W. Bush, but when it comes to accepting their workers fundamental right to organize, very little separates Starbucks from the rest of the freeze-dried vacuum pack. I'm not sure which is more bitter, the stuff in the mermaid-stamped cups or the hypocrisy of launching a line of Starbucks Fair Trade Coffee when the people serving it up don't get a fair deal themselves.

Smith received a Lifetime Starbucks Card as a parting gift from the adoring throng in Seattle yesterday. In order to use it, he might have to face a few of the people who get shortchanged on the other side of the till because of Starbucks' pretending to be a progressive employer rather than actually being one.

He might want to get that to go....