Schultz's father was an uneducated veteran of World War II and worked in a series of blue-collar jobs, never making more than $20,000 a year: factory worker, cabbie, truck driver delivering cloth diapers. The oldest of three children, Schultz felt the enduring "sadness" of his father's work life. When Schultz was 7, he came home to find his father "sprawled on a couch" with a cast on the lower half of his body: Fred Schultz had fallen on a sheet of ice at work and broken his hip and ankle. He was fired and sent home — without health care coverage, worker's compensation, or severance. That image both haunts and inspires Howard Schultz. Few American employers offer what Starbucks under Schultz has long given its 107,000 "partners" (what the company calls its employees) in the U.S. In addition to equity grants of "Bean stock," all fulltimers and part-timers putting in at least 20 hours a week (which means nearly all of them) get health care benefits.