The daily business briefing: March 2, 2023

A federal administrative law judge ruled Wednesday that Starbucks tried to stop union-organizing campaigns at its coffee stores with "egregious and widespread" labor-law violations. Judge Michael Rosas ordered the company to reopen closed stores and provide back pay and damages to employees who started the nationwide effort to unionize Starbucks employees. Rosas wrote in his order that the company showed "a general disregard for the employees' fundamental rights," retaliating against employees affiliated with Starbucks Workers United. The case covered complaints of unfair labor practices at 21 Buffalo-area stores. Since the union drive began, 268 of Starbucks' 9,000 company-owned U.S. stores have unionized. Starbucks called the ruling "inappropriate," saying the workers were fired for violating company policies, not in retaliation for union affiliation.

Eli Lilly and Co. announced Wednesday that it would cut the price of its most commonly prescribed insulin by 70 percent in the fourth quarter this year. The drugmaker also said it would cap out-of-pocket costs for insulin at $35 per month for privately insured and uninsured diabetes patients, matching the new cap for Medicare recipients. The move came after President Biden pushed to extend the cap to most Americans, a change patient advocates have called for after reports that some diabetes patients were having to ration their medicine due to rising costs. Experts estimate that Eli Lilly's cap will help about two million people pay for the life-saving drug. 

Data from two large online recruiting companies — ZipRecruiter and Recruit Holdings — indicate that demand for U.S. workers is starting to weaken, despite still-hot government hiring reports, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The two companies say the number of job postings they are seeing has fallen more than Labor Department figures on job openings. If government data falls into line with the private-sector reports, the Federal Reserve could feel less pressure to continue its aggressive interest rate hikes, which are designed to slow the economy and bring down high inflation, the Journal said. The Labor Department will report January job openings and February payroll data next week.

U.S. stock futures struggled early Thursday after the three major indexes fell Wednesday on the first trading day of March. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.2 percent at 6:30 a.m. ET. S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures were down 0.4 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively. The Dow closed nearly flat on Wednesday, while the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.5 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively, as benchmark 10-year Treasury yields shot above 4 percent for the first time since November. Earnings season continued, with Salesforce shares jumping 15 percent in after-hours trading after the business-software provider reported a strong quarter and projected increasing profitability.

Tesla said Wednesday that it would cut assembly costs in half for the next generation of its electric vehicles. Tesla engineers said the company would meet the goal with manufacturing innovations and smaller factories. CEO Elon Musk didn't say when the company would unveil the more affordable electric vehicles. The changes could lower prices to about $25,000. The EV-maker confirmed that some of the new vehicles would be produced at a new plant to be built in Mexico. Tesla's chief financial officer, Zach Kirkhorn, said Tesla would have to increase investments six-fold to hit the long-term target of producing 20 million vehicles a year by 2030, 10 times current capacity. Tesla shares fell more than 5 percent in after-hours trading.