Turmoil Follows Starbucks' U.K. Twitter Campaign
Starbucks
A Starbucks twitter campaign in the U.K. has seriously backfired. The company recently encouraged its followers to get into the holiday spirit and use the hashtag #spreadthecheer. Instead of support, however, the effort resulted in an outpouring of tweets bashing the coffee chain's "low tax rates and labor policies," according to HuffPo. To add to the brewers embarrassment, the tweets were projected on a screen at the London Museum of Natural History, the home of the company-sponsored skating rink.
So why were these brits so mad? Eater reports that Starbucks recently changed their corporate tax policy -- agreeing to pay an additional £10 million -- after it was found out that they had been dodging dollars by transferring "transferring revenue through countries with lower tax rates". The company is also said to have planned on "cutting paid lunch breaks, sick leave and maternity benefits for thousands of British workers."
A representative for Starbucks has since apologized for the child-unfriendly tweets, saying that there was a "temporary malfunction" in their filtration system. And we thought that only happened to their coffee.
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