Why ex-Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz hates the ‘billionaire’ label [Video]

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., relentlessly grilled former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz on Wednesday during Shultz’s testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee about Starbucks’ labor practices. “Over the past 18 months, Starbucks has waged the most aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign in the modern history of our country,” Sanders declared. Schultz denied throughout the hearing that the company has done anything illegal. But the National Labor Relations Board has issued more than 80 complaints over 278 unfair labor practice charges against the company, and has in the past handed down rulings that Starbucks broke federal labor law.

Schultz’s language illustrates the delusion that extreme wealth generates among those who hold it.

Schultz — who had refused to appear before the Senate until Sanders threatened to subpoena him, and who may have resignedearly to shield the company before the hearing — seemed particularly angry about one point: He said it was “unfair” that Sanders called …