Starbucks spokesperson Alan Gulick says that the company Code of Conduct drafted in 1995 was "a first step in putting our aspirations into practice," but that monitoring the living and working conditions of Guatemalan farmworkers is "presently beyond our capabilities." He maintains that many of the aspirations expressed in the code have been met. In response to Bruce Herbert's complaints of being denied a follow-up question at the Starbucks shareholders' meeting, Gulick claims that the official format of the meeting was to "limit everybody to one question....Everybody was treated the same."

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