Starbucks and other companies have also sought to dismiss any unionization effort involving undercover organizers as illegitimate. Howard Schultz, the coffee chain's iconic three-time chief executive officer, stressed in his March 29 testimony to the Senate labor committee that the key organizer at his company was also on a union's payroll. "If that's not a nefarious act, I don't know what is," he said. Schultz, who retook the CEO job on an interim basis last year as the union votes multiplied, stepped down slightly ahead of schedule on March 20 amid growing scrutiny of the company. The committee chair, Bernie Sanders, had threatened to subpoena Schultz to appear at the hearing, an investigation of alleged illegal union-busting at Starbucks.