It's been rumored over the years that Starbucks' chairman Howard Schultz has some pretty lofty political aspirations. There's a darkly humorous thing that happens when sort of liberalish business leaders discover that workers at their company want to unionize (clearly there must be some kind of mistake!), but Schultz might just get over it and play ball with the unions.
They have Starbucks in Europe and cannot sabotage unions there.
American liberals need to walk the talk. But it seems so many of them are just closet Republicans especially when the idealism costs them money. I haven't forgotten how Bernie Sanders was silenced.
Wage theft is three times larger than the rest of categories of theft combined, so I suspect the issue is more systemic than some individually asshole leaders / more complex than celebrity-like good vs bad evaluation of individual actors. Agreed they are assholes, but am skeptical that advicating nicer ones and fining the mean ones can legitimize the whole system
Right, culture is frequently described as a top-down phenomenon, so it is appropriate to look at those highest in the leadership chain first, as they are prime movers when it comes to this kind of thing. They shape the organization's operations through their choices of what to get involved in and what to let others handle.
I have no idea what right or wrong means to most people in 2023. Also there is no such thing unless you believe in Judeo-Christian values. There are only actions
Wage theft is also not punished nearly heavily enough to act as a deterrent. From Rutgers:
"Even if an employer is caught, the penalties are generally not severe enough to change their future behavior. The two primary penalties that DOL uses are civil money penalties and liquidated damages. Employers who repeatedly or willfully violate the minimum wage and overtime requirements may be subjected to civil monetary penalties of up to $1,100 for each violation, but DOL seldom uses these penalties (Bobo, 2009)."[0]
Workers are a variable cost. A business where the surplus goes to workers ongoing instead of profiting its owners is a failure, or a worker’s cooperative.
The two comments above you are discussing how this is kind of what workers signed up for when they joined a union. Maybe SB leadership are assholes (and maybe they are breaking labor laws -- I genuinely don't know much about this topic), and not to call you out specifically, but I see a lot "drive by" comments like these that are just expression of anger, and don't really engage with the story at all. I see a lot of non-programming discussions get buried in this stuff, and it makes HN feel like Reddit. I used to always feel like more likely than not I'd learn things from HN comments.
HN stories about unions always attract low-value comments. I prefer the GP-kind of comments to the elaborate troll replies pretending to understand unionisation ("oh look! Less money! That must have been the sort of thing the workers really wanted when they unionised").
I'm clearly no expert in labor law, but isn't the entire point of unionization that the company has to negotiate significant changes in contract and benefits terms with the union? As a lay person, that seems like the first principles of what unionization means. The company can act directly with the workers in non-union locations and must work with the union in union locations; that seems to be what Starbucks is doing. (Now, are they being strategic and jerks about it? Yeah, probably, but they couldn't unilaterally impose these changes, even if seemingly beneficial to workers, without negotiations with the union.)
I've heard that this is typically how it goes. Union reps will negotiate every detail, so all of the stuff that you have already done for the rest of your staff has to be brought to the table as a negotiating point with the union for it to factor into the conversation.
If the employees keeping tips wasn't part of the contract then the employees don't get to keep tips. For all we know the tips are supposed to be pooled and divided among all workers based on seniority. Or if there's nothing in the contract then management can probably keep them for themselves or donate them.
the same for raises, etc. The contract should have all of that spelled out. If not then the union failed at the their job.
Starbucks is allowed to give benefits to union members without negotiation (why would unions want to fight free benefits?). But most companies don't just give benefits to unions when they can use them in contract negotiations.
Now, I'm not a lawyer, labor or otherwise, so I'm not sure how the law works when you provide benefits to non-union shops but not to union shops, but that's what the NLRB is for.
Unions have tried to block unilateral pay raises in the past. It's a contract change; the union feels empowered to be a party to that change (which seems "fair and reasonable enough" to me).
Withholding tipping (cash tips weren't allocated, and credit card tipping wasn't implemented to solve cash tip withholding) from union stores was determined to be illegal wage theft
> In May 2022, then-CEO Howard Schultz announced that the company would begin rolling out credit card tipping in the fall at all of its locations — save for the 200+ stores that were unionized or in the process of unionizing.
They didn’t keep tips, they withheld the convenience from customers. Shitty, but not exactly theft.
That seems like exactly the kind of hair-splitting shenanigans that management would undertake to attempt to strike back at the union stores.
Sure, they're only withholding the convenience from the customers, but how much real impact does this have on the tips given? I know I've personally had to forego giving tips before due to lack of cash.
The problem some (all?) Starbucks workers have had for the past few years is that their point of sale systems weren't making it possible to tip when paying via credit card, so people would need to tip cash. Fixing that for non-union employees but not unionized employees is what tweaked the NLRB, since it's part of a pattern of "union busting" behavior.
Starbucks is not really set up to have the kind of slimy, lawful evil middle management that can be really good at union busting. Guile and misanthropy aren't exactly hallmarks of Starbucks staff. The stuff they're doing now is really obviously going to get them into trouble. This is not exactly subtle:
“At my store, it did have a negative impact — we had our election finalized right as they rolled out these new benefits,” says Alisha Humphrey, a Starbucks union leader in Oklahoma City. So as happy as we were that people won, we were told that since we won our election, we were not getting credit card tipping or the raises. Our manager met with everyone and told us that if we transferred to another store, you would make $1.50 more and credit card tipping. And some did transfer.”
Yup. Around here, they removed the foam comfort mats from the work areas (behind the register, at the machines, etc.) that were designed to reduce fatigue, foot stress / pain from extended standing.
They said it was a safety issue.
Then it was pointed out that they'd only removed them at the stores where they were unionized or were in the process of doing it, and they had very little explanation for why the mats were safe in non-union stores.
First, for the record, any claims that unions make this process harder is a lie designed by a union busting consulting firm.
Second:
(1) any change to the contract has to be approved by the union. That includes raises and the like, yes.
(2) that can literally be an email from Starbucks to the union's lawyer saying "we're making these changes" and an email back from the union lawyer saying "cool, sounds good".
(3) union lawyers work for the union members. They almost never have a reason to reject a purely positive change, and turn-around for simple positive changes can be 24 hours easily
(4) if the union wants more, they'll still accept the positive change and then separately negotiate an even larger change.
If there's an active strike negotiation going on, the company may not want to give an intermediate positive change because it weakens their bargaining power.
If the change is a mix of positive and negative, things may go differently.
> First, for the record, any claims that unions make this process harder is a lie designed by a union busting consulting firm.
Do you have anything to back this up? It appears to just be your opinion presented as fact. While I’d love to take your word on your opinion presented as a fact; I would prefer to see some data or documentation to back it up. Thanks!
I dunno. Where does the burden of proof lie on this? Starbucks seems to be the one claiming they can’t give arbitrary raises to union workers. The union seems to be saying “you can!”
It seems to me that Starbucks is pulling a “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas!” here.
On one hand I can see why they’d do that, on the other hand they still need to operate within federal employment law and it sounds like the NLRB says they aren’t. Presumably they can challenge that in court if they disagree?
You’re right, it is an opinion. There is probably no easy way to substantiate the statement “any claims that unions make this process harder is a lie designed by a union busting consulting firm”.
On the other hand, the entire job of a union busting consulting firm is to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about unions. The claim that unions would take actions, or fail to take actions, to make it less likely for their members to receive a pay raise, is the kind of claim that a union busting consulting firm would likely make. This is Public Relations 101.
And the whole point of a union bureaucracy is to justify its existence and paint all employers as great villains. Your biased here. It’s not this black and white.
coming off of close to 50 years of anti-union sentiment as well as fewer unions and more union busting. We're as close to black and white as we can get in any discussion about current events.
Is the claim defendable, probably not, but the NLRB just found that Starbucks is trying to discourage stores from unionizing (which sounds like something they would do...) So I'm much more inclined to believe they're being unhelpful in union negotiations than a newly minted union is.
The union does not appear to be new at least to me. It seems like the StarBucks union is apart of a larger organization of unions.
So this isn’t a _new_ union or a union _moving fast and breaking things_ it’s a conglomerate of other much veteran unions.
> Starbucks Workers United is a national collective of Starbucks Partners who help organize workplaces alongside Workers United Upstate, a union with members across many industries, including the coffee industry.
> The current Starbucks unionization movement began in Buffalo, New York when a store voted to unionize in late 2021.
Less than 2 years from your own article.
That counts as newly minted. Also how many of those locations have a contract at this point? That's the bigger and more relevant piece of this. The fact that other unions are helping them out, doesn't mean that those other unions have negotiated with Starbucks. That's it's own thing that makes every union negotiation different.
I wrote out a really thoughtful response to this, but I will instead just say the opposite of you since that's as much consideration as you seem to have put into your response.
Nope, you're just anti union so you don't see nuance against your worldview, you just trust what corporations tell you.
> They almost never have a reason to reject a purely positive change, and turn-around for simple positive changes can be 24 hours easily
This isn't obviously a purely positive change. Maybe some employees would prefer a current cash-only tip policy (maybe they think the tips are larger in cash; maybe less than 100% of those cash tips find their way onto income tax forms; maybe their paychecks are garnished or subject to a income sharing/alimony/child support arrangement while folding cash isn't; maybe they like getting the tip immediately and using it to buy lunch or gas that day rather than getting it later via payroll).
These are things that a union representing the employees must be consulted on and the story paints this as a purely positive change, but there are times in my life where I'd rather have gotten $10 in cash before lunch than $12 two weeks later in my paycheck.
Naw none of those things really apply, previously people who paid with credit card would be unable to tip unless they have cash, by turning this on your capturing tips that might not have been able to have been received earlier.
Also you didn't take tips home directly after the shift you'd get it later as they usually shared tips across shifts so closing the store or working any other slow shift wouldn't hurt financially.
Probably not at every store but I guarantee you that at the union stores it was because not reporting the tips would be an immediately fire-able offense and corporate would have been looking for any excuse to fire people at those stores.
That union lawyer isn't going to unilaterally say ok. It has to get socialized and a consensus opinion needs to be found. That takes time. And like you pointed out, the union might not want to accept a modest increase because it can weaken their bargaining position. So, despite your claim the union doesn't make this more difficult, it absolutely objectively does make it more difficult than he company being able to make a decision without these restrictions. That doesn't mean unions are bad or that this process isn't worth it, but don't poison the well with unneeded dishonesty.
The Union sets the employees and the business up as adversaries and guarantees that there will be a contract negotiation. If you know that you will be in a knock-down drag-out fight every time the contact is renegotiated, why would you ever give a single solitary inch that you’re not forced to? The business is always n days away from another strike negotiation because that is the entire reason the union exists (to threaten strikes).
I don’t understand why people expect labor to be able to play hardball while also trying to benefit from a cooperative relationship with the adversarial partner.
It would be so much easier if those damn peasants would just shut up and follow orders.
Look we know why unions got started and the human condition hasn't changed. There are people out there who would reintroduce child labour if they could get away with it. Guess who makes sure that they can't?
To put my cards on the table, I am a Marxist. I also agree with every part of your comment. This is why (disciplined) Marxists oppose the NLRB and other aspects of Americanized union arrangements, and it's why we support right-to-work. The NLRB and the slew of anti-labor laws enacted in the US in the late forties have effectively weakened unions to the point that they cannot fight for anything without navigating the NLRB's bureaucratic maze of anti-labor regulations. Realize these laws were enacted in direct response to soldiers returning from WW2 and not taking shit from anybody. They made demands, fought for them, and won, and capital passed these laws in response.
So...the question now becomes: How do you feel about illegal wildcat strikes? Would you support abolishment of the NLRB? Would you support reversal of the Taft Hartley act? Which side are you actually on?
I'm pretty much the opposite of a marxist, but I absolutely support the abolishment of the NLRB and the legalization of all otherwise legal labor negotiation tactics as freedom of association. If there are critical professions that we don't want to strike, then their employer can negotiate that as part of their contract in exchange for higher pay.
> The Union sets the employees and the business up as adversaries and guarantees that there will be a contract negotiation.
> I don’t understand why people expect labor to be able to play hardball while also trying to benefit from a cooperative relationship with the adversarial partner.
I don't understand why people think it's not an adversarial relationship without a union. The workers are trying to get the most value for their labor, the company wants to get the most labor for its money. The difference is without a union the company has more power than you do.
Outside of the smallest businesses, most individual workers are disposable as far as the company is concerned. Their duties will be picked up by other employees and there's no rush to replace them. The company won't be substantially harmed by losing one worker, for the most part. There are of course exceptions, generally in small organizations or specialized skillsets, where individuals can be extremely hard to replace, but those cases are not the norm.
On the flip side most workers who lose their job have an immediate problem. Almost 2/3 of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. If they lose their job they have at most a few weeks before they're missing payments. No longer having a job with no immediate prospect to replace it poses an imminent threat to the stability of their life.
This gives employers a massive amount of leverage to push for the absolute minimum they can get away with before employees start saying "I'd rather starve", while employees have little to push back with.
A union attempts to balance the scales by turning the workforce in to a combined threat. No longer is the company negotiating against an individual, it's one or more entire classes of workers that they stand to lose and have to replace if they don't come to an agreement.
> that can literally be an email from Starbucks to the union’s lawyer saying “we’re making these changes” and an email back from the union lawyer saying “cool, sounds good”.
No, it can’t. If it requires a contract amendment, it has to be ratified by the membership, not “union lawyers” (who probably wouldn’t be in the direct chain of contact; contract changes would usually go through the unions bargaining staff, who might consult with lawyers, as the main contact.)
> First, for the record, any claims that unions make this process harder is a lie designed by a union busting consulting firm.
This is a lie and is peddled by pro union lawyers and activists. It goes both ways. Anyone who’s worked for a union or with one knows that they most certainly make negotiating directly harder. This is one of the main points of a union.
Yeah, at my employer changes in benefits have always rolled out to non-represented and union employees at different times depending on the negotiation period for each union. I'm curious as to where the line is drawn here.
A google search for "starbucks site:NLRB.gov" gives a ton of results and none of the first 10 were obviously related to this complaint. If anyone can find a link it would be helpful.
The piece you're missing is that Starbucks didn't say "we offered this deal to the union and they rejected it." Instead they make vague statements about how things would work, if Starbucks was acting in good faith, which it's been clear they haven't. The NLRB has sanctioned them multiple times for acting in bad faith, including not negotiating. They can't blame the negotiation process for delays when they are the ones delaying the negotiation process.
Even if what they did is illegal and they get punished, the fines are likely to be something like <1% of yearly revenue and basically a rounding error for them so what incentive do they have to stop doing it?
It makes them look petty, it will add friction to their relationship with the unions, and it probably costs them a little extra to deliberately exclude a relatively small number of locations from the ability to tip than it would to just universally roll it out.
It shouldn't take much of a fine to convince them to give up on it. The bad PR alone would probably be enough.
>It shouldn't take much of a fine to convince them to give up on it. The bad PR alone would probably be enough.
I'm not sure about that. Plenty of companies receive fines for doing shady and illegal things and I don't think their bottom lines change much as a result.
Caring about looking petty has never once crossed Starbuck's radar. Union and non-union stores look the same to customers (except now some allow credit card tipping), so customers would only know about this at all if they're in tune with this type of news.
I am not sure I get the logic here. Labor unions create more structure and rigidity in the employer employee relationship, where everything is negotiated rather than ad hoc.
Presumably the employees in unionized stores got some benefits from the union (higher wages, stability? Otherwise what's the point of the union.) So they must already have some baseline they negotiated and have been happy with.
Starbucks is rolling out a different model to it's not structured employee situations, this is both their right since the rigidity of the union isn't there, and perhaps it's needed there more.
As a layperson that "not relying on tips" is a goal that a union should provide (else what's the point?) So it's weird that they now want those too.
Totally get why the union doesn't like it but it's kinda one sided. You are either married or you okay the field.
Why does that matter? It still requires (a) SBUX to do work and (b) has impact on SBUX. What I mean by later : if I am someone who didn't tip before the CC system but now I do because it's easy, my cup of coffee has gone up by a buck.
On the margin at some point it's going to just be the same as a price raise (coffee is 5 bucks rather than 4) which obviously impacts business at least somewhat.
Your logic that the cost of a cup of coffee has effectively gone up by $1 because you have voluntarily given a $1 tip which you didn't but could have given prior is completely illogical.
It's tightly logical but you are failing to follow.
Credit card integration obviously generates more tipping, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it.
This is because once they see the prompt, many people think of the tip as mandatory (vs may not have thought about it) - or they don't have cash but now can tip. A good thing. I always tip well.
Now coffee becomes a thing you tip for, for these people. Totally voluntary.
For those people, this raises the effective price of a cup of coffee.
Getting Starbucks now becomes a costlier habit. At the margins this can drive someone to go elsewhere, skip, etc (basic supply and demand.)
This may not apply to some given individual but across millions of customers over a long time price including tip obviously affects quantity demanded.
The union's goal can be to get to a place where tips are not required in terms of wages, but that doesn't mean they should be required to abstain from receiving tips until they get there.
And doubly so when in the midst of doing all this, Starbucks moves up the wages of their workers, but much less so if you're in the union.
i.e. Now you have a situation where unionized workers are being paid less than non-unionized workers, AND being denied access to tips.
I'm not sure how you can look at that scenario and say "I don't understand the union's grievance". I think it's more than "doesn't like it". Which is why the NLRB sided with them on all points of the issue. Starbucks is only union-hostile and petty about it too - around here they also got in trouble for removing padded foam mats behind counters (for reducing fatigue/foot pain), but only from the unionizing stores, and then tried to claim it was done for "safety" reasons (and had no real answer why, if so, it wasn't being done across the board).
Starbucks stores only started attempting unionizing in the past year or two, and the first store to unionize did so in Dec 2021. [1]
So this is all pretty brand new. The union, I presume, wants ALL stores to be unionized, and wants ALL stores to have CC tip options, and for ALL stores to have those other union-negotiated benefits.
Rolling out the ability to accept CC tips as a strictly non-union perk is 100% a union-busting power play.
How can you see it as anything but targeted attacks? You don't just roll out a change like this and forget to negotiate with the union. Adding a tip line is something unions are very familiar with and would not object to. SB wanted it this way.
>As a layperson that "not relying on tips" is a goal [...] So it's weird that they now want those too.
The goal is to benefit the worker. Tips are culturally embedded and a significant amount of money. It's weird to think the union wouldn't want that for their members. Would guaranteed higher pay be better? Yes. Is that an actual either/or option? No.
>Totally get why the union doesn't like it but it's kinda one sided. You are either married or you okay the field.
What does this even mean? What are the arbitrary rules you think should apply? Being in a union shouldn't mean its OK to be screwed with by SB management at every opportunity.
But isn't the point of the union that they negotiate as a group separately from non-union employees? So it sounds like what is going on is if the union gets a better deal, then they're like "see, you should join the union because we get a better deal," but if the union negotiates a worse deal they say "that's not fair, you're screwing over the union."
Just sounds to me like they don't actually have the leverage they promised their members to extract better pay, and are now whining "no fair" for having to sleep in the bed they made.
That sounds exactly right. You can have a fluid or rigid relationship between employees and the company, but it then goes one way.
If employees get "hardcore" about creating limits on how the company can hire/pay/whatever, it obviously changes how the company engages with those employees as well.
To wit, if you force me to sign in blood for everything I have to give you, I am not going to give you anything else.
This isn't the union failing to negotiate a good deal, or being sticklers about procedure and thus preventing union employees from getting what non-union employees are being given. Starbucks is deliberately using this as a way to sabotage the union, by refusing to even offer them the same terms as non-union employees. This is illegal.
What does it mean to "offer the same terms?" Presumably the unionized folks are getting some compensation benefit compared to non-unionized (otherwise, what's the point?)
Since the terms are already different, how do you compare if the union rate (no CC tips) is better than the non-union rate (with CC tips?)
Starbucks did not offer to negotiate these new benefits with the unionized stores. They rolled them out to non-union stores, then made a lot of noise about how they couldn't possibly give them to the union stores, because the union was preventing it—but they didn't actually engage in any negotiations with the union, offer the benefits, or in any other way show good faith.
It is painfully clear that this is a deliberate union-busting tactic on Starbucks' part. The only reason they gave any stores these benefits is in order to make the union look bad.
I don't know labor law, but if you're right, it's completely ridiculous. I know for a fact that union employees are allowed to receive benefits and pay increases that non-union employees don't get. If the other side of the coin is illegal, then the law is insane.
Specifically because it's a union-busting tactic, employers cannot give benefits to non-union employees that are not at least offered to union employees.
Remember, the employer/employee relationship is an inherently unequal one. The freedom of the employer to do certain things is curtailed for the common good, in exchange for substantial power and economic advantages.
I get the "more money is better" concept :) There's also the no free lunch concept.
Chosing to be in the union means you want the negotiated salary, and you want to be shielded from the outcome of your work a bit (we all make the same regardless of how we perform, short of being so bad that you get fired)
The stability of compensation implies... Stability of compensation. You get the negotiated rate.
Tips are the opposite of that. Tips are performance based and someone providing great customer service (individual or on store level) is going to get more. That's not in line with the union mindset so I don't see why that would be expected.
I also don't see why SBUX should go out of its way to benefit the union. The unions explicit mission is to insert itself between SBUX and the employees, where the employee relationship is now more with the union rather than the company. There's no expectation of the company giving the union more power if it doesn't need to.
I guess this case will come down to whether this is really illegal or not. We'll see.
> I also don't see why SBUX should go out of its way to benefit the union. The unions explicit mission is to insert itself between SBUX and the employees, where the employee relationship is now more with the union rather than the company.
I take issue with this framing. This has some implication of a malicious, or rent-seeking, third party, interfering with SBUX and its employees. Except that it's a union -of- employees.
And the union wants a better/equal salary. But SBUX wants to pay a tip-dependent wage and then remove tipping options from those stores. You can't say, objectively, "Well, the union wants everyone paid equally/fairly, and they've got that now, what's the big deal?" when the wages being paid equally/fairly are predicated on tip income.
By your logic, if a restaurant workers union wanted to have everyone on equal wages and remove tipping from the equation, they should be happy to have tips removed and have everyone making $2.13/hr (well, it'd have to be $7.25/hr) because hey, it's equal, and all they need to do now is negotiate that rate up, right?
The issue is framed at the top of the article - SBUX is not removing tipping options, it is not adding them. Meaning whatever the union has negotiated is still in place exactly.
I am not prepared to argue the details of the barista labor market but SBUX has a reputation for taking good care of their employees, compared to other places that hire that type of talent (401k, tuition coverage, etc.) Meaning, it expects employees to work hard/go above and beyond and tries to do the same for them - at least in their own assessment and I bet many employees agree.
The employees who chose to unionize presumably didn't like what the company was offering them on its own and decided to lever up their demands. That changes the relationship from "taking good care of each other" to bounds by rigid rules. Once you bind me by rigid rules, I am not giving you anything extra (if for no other reason as I can use that as leverage in our next negotiation which is what you're forcing me to do)
This is text book retribution for a employees engaging in protected activity: one manager was dumb enough to say it out loud. Tgis kicked this issue out of the legal gray area Starbucks would love to occupy.
Think of it as firing a whistleblower for poor performance: it's never a good look and ought to impose a supersized burden of proof on the employer even in the rare cases where it's true.
There is no need to perform mental gymnastics when Occam's razor perfectly applies.
Barista starting Hourly Pay Range near me: $15.50 to $17.50 (before tips)
> From free coffee to competitive pay, Starbucks is proud to offer a comprehensive compensation and benefits package to our eligible part-time and full-time partners. Benefits include 100% tuition coverage through our Starbucks College Achievement Plan, health coverage with a variety of plans to choose from, and stock & savings programs like our equity reward program, Bean Stock. What’s more, Starbucks offers flexible scheduling and opportunities for paid time off. Visit starbucksbenefits.com for details.
This is a non union store to my knowledge.
Looking at this as pessimistically as possible, I'll guess nobody is getting 40 solid hours a week (aka they strategically cycle through 20 to 30 hour/week part time employees)
7 days a week, 25 hours a week, let's say you don't work 3 days (you are 100% off, not on call in case the store gets busy or something)
25 hours a week, 4 days a week. about 6.25 hours a shift. let's say it's $16/hr
$100 in a 6.25 hour day, 4 days a week, $400/week gross
Let's say you don't work at all 4 weeks of the year (store closed for holiday, you take unpaid vacation/sick time/call out, you don't use PTO, i don't know). 52 weeks a year, say you work 48 full.
$16/hr, 25 hours a week, 48 weeks a year: $19.2k/yr before any tips
$16/hr, 30 hours a week, 48 weeks a year: $23.0k/yr before any tips
$16/hr, 35 hours a week, 48 weeks a year: $26.8k/yr before any tips
$16/hr, 40 hours a week, 48 weeks a year: $30.7k/yr before any tips
$16/hr, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year: $32.0k/yr before any tips
so the upper bound for what you'll most likely ever earn gross as a barista at starbucks is $32k/yr
say the union comes in, negotiates. what does this upper bound increase to?
Are you telling me if you're a good part time (or full time) barista at Starbucks in a non-union store and you don't abuse (call in sick too often like being hungover from a party the night before, are reliable), you have to worry about getting fired for taking... 5 days off unpaid sick? I kind of "don't believe" that's how the world works.
Have you actually worked a service job regularly? 5 days off unpaid was an absolutely ridiculous ask when I was in service. I would have to debate going to a doctor to justify the call in sick for an extended period of time, which I couldn't afford, as my job didn't provide healthcare, or else risk a writeup for every shift I missed. Kind of a shit sandwich all around. I see Starbucks offers medical for qualified part time employees, which I suspect would mean you actually didn't have healthcare for a fairly significant length of time.
it just feels like, if you were to ask starbucks management/leadership
"can employees in your non-union stores request 5 days off unpaid if they are sick without fear of being fired"
they would say "absolutely"
but you are saying "most likely not"
who is being dishonest?
if most of your employees are in that 20-35 hour range with no fear of overtime, aren't you able to say "so and so is sick, let me just call somebody else who is being under-utilized/has availability?"
You should just ask someone who's worked at Starbucks if you don't want to believe it.
I'm curious though... What do you think the incentive is for people demanding benefits they already secretly have? Why do you think they're making it up? Its obvious why management would make it up but why the employee?
Why would you ask starbucks management this question? Ask a worker how comfortable they feel asking for time off, ask them what the process is when they're sick.
I've been one so here let me just tell you. You have to call up your coworkers on their days off and beg them to cover you. You promise or call in favors, you convince someone to give up time with their family or skip class or to work a double shift for you. If you can't get anyone to do it you work sick.
If you can't get it covered and actually don't go to work the manager will work the shift and hold it against you forever. They can fire you for it the first time and they really might, it all depends on your relationship with them. At the very least your relationship, whatever it was, is badly damaged. They make the schedule so I hope you don't need consistent hours, or a specific day off for class or anything.
Yup. My ex- ran into this when she worked at Starbucks. All sorts of "unintentional" back to back "close one night, open the next morning", split shifts, etc. And very little you can do about it.
Neither. Your hypothetical is wrong.
Management would point you to the gargantuan employee handbook that all employees sign as a condition of employment. Somewhere in there it states that shift coverage is the employee's job and that company profits/image are of utmost importance.
Management knows the hourly workers are easily replaceable warm bodies.
> if most of your employees are in that 20-35 hour range with no fear of overtime, aren't you able to say "so and so is sick, let me just call somebody else who is being under-utilized/has availability?"
No, this isn't that simple, and asking this question makes me ask how much experience you have with service work to even question the justification of a union. People who are working part-time are usually juggling multiple jobs, childcare, or other life circumstances which makes their hours not that flexible. Additionally, in order to avoid being eligible for full-time benefits you are literally unable to call in someone else who might have availability. Calling in sick suddenly usually means the team has to work short that shift, or someone else agrees to work your shift in that you owe them later with the understanding cost that they won't be working a shift at another time, leaving the shift they aren't working also short a member, thus cascading the issue.
> Starbucks' turnover rate is 65%, much lower than the industry standard because they put energy, resources, and money into creating a great employee experience which directly impacts the guest experience.
It's possible, though very difficult, to get health insurance when working at starbucks. This is better than most service industry jobs, where you will never get health insurance no matter what. That's the main meaningful difference they definitely don't "create a great employee experience" lmao.
the 65% number is from at least 9 years ago. the blog you linked is sharing outdated numbers and parroting corporate lines about their worker experience without any critical evaluation of their veracity - we call that propaganda.
how does "i'd like to see all baristas be able to call out of work if they get sick without consequence (fear of losing their job) despite the constraint of a store needing sufficient manpower hours scheduled when it comes to staffing to give good service/get through a shift for its customers" correlate to "i/other customers don't want to pay starbucks already high prices, let alone hypothetically higher needed to support starbucks having a more lax 'employees need unpaid spontaneous time off' policy"
they have 75% margins on their coffee as is, yet their net margins are 10% company wide. the average drink in my experience is $6-$8 before a tip. how much more do they need to charge their customers in order to make "starbucks will be less strict and more understanding about their employees needing unpaid time off randomly without having to worry about it counting as a missed shift/needing to get it covered"? they only have that policy because otherwise their bottom line would get affected, right?
what's realistic? 2 random sick days a quarter per employee? 4 a year? sick bank hours accrued?
idk working out their profit model isn't my responsibility but allowing workers to take sick time without retribution can't be optional either. if those two aren't compatible then we just can't have starbucks I guess oh well.
i wouldn't say it's working out their entire profit model, i'd say it's applying basic logic
if this, then that
if "employees taking time off without any notice (sick time) disrupts the schedule/store operations", then "the store will suffer financially"
if "the store suffers financially", then "the loss needs to be made up elsewhere in order to be offset"
if "the loss needs to be made up elsewhere", then "the money needs to come from somewhere"
if "the money to offset the loss needs to come from somewhere", then "prices need to be increased"
therefore, in order for ALL workers to be allowed to take SOME sick time off (time off without much notice) without retribution, prices need to be increased even further
if prices need to be increased even further, you might alienate away even more of your existing or potential customer base (prices already very high for what they offer relative to their competition)
if you alienate away more customers, you lose money
therefore, you're asking the business to lose money at the expense of their dispensable/replaceable entry level jobs. i don't mean for that to sound as cold and heartless and immoral and rude as it does. i'm not some high level executive who only thinks in terms of MBA. i'm just trying to show perspective to both sides of the bargaining equation. imagine if the entire staff could call out sick whenever they wanted without consequence twice a week. the store would have to close down, wouldn't it? where's the balance?
is the balance supposed to be exactly where it is now? you'd argue it needs to be more in favor of the worker, but you also admit to not putting much effort/thought into thinking of the business side, becasue you're arguing it's already too much in favor of the business side
> therefore, you're asking the business to lose money at the expense of their dispensable/replaceable entry level jobs.
Yes I am. That's exactly what it comes down to.
I uncompromisingly believe that making profit while not providing a living wage and sick time is immoral and should not be allowed. Maybe they can do both, maybe they can't. They put themselves in the position of needing to find out though.
> From the perspective of a business owner trying to run a business, there can be a link between allowing baristas to call out sick without consequences and potential price increases for customers. If baristas are allowed to call out sick without consequences, it may result in increased staffing costs due to the need to hire additional workers to cover shifts. This may also result in decreased productivity, as a shortage of staff can lead to longer wait times and lower customer satisfaction.
> To maintain their profit margins and offset these costs, a business owner may need to consider increasing prices for their products, which could potentially impact their customer base. However, it's important to balance the financial considerations with the well-being of employees and the long-term health of the business. Prioritizing the health and safety of employees, providing flexible sick leave policies, and ensuring adequate staffing levels can also contribute to better customer satisfaction and long-term profitability.
instead of focusing on maximizing shareholder profit, you want to keep profit the same as it is now, but you also want to be a good moral person and listen to the complaints about "baristas need to be able to make $16/hr and have up to 5 'i can't come in for whatever reason despite being scheduled and i don't want to rush to get it covered/make it the store's problem and not mine' days a quarter"
how much MORE do you have to raise the drink prices from $6-8 per drink before tip to pull that off? serious question
you're at 75% margin when a drink is $7 (hypothetical but probably within a ballpark)
do you need to raise margins to 85% to be able to support baristas needing 5 unpaid random days off a quarter? 5 * 4 quarters = 20 a year
i don't think margins after what you charge the customer can stay the same while also enabling baristas to call out (what effects does that have on a store's daily sales/revenue/profit? they're linked, right? less baristas, customers get pissed, walk out, cancel orders, more mistakes made, or people see it is too busy and don't want to wait and don't order)
so you need to increase margins in order to support bartsias being allowed to basically, mess up the daily shift scheduling dynamic. somebody calling out randomly for being sick without being able to find a cover can probably cost the store... up to 20% of its revenue/sales/profit a day? 10%? 5%? 25%?
say you have 4-5 baristas per shift during busy hours. they can all call out sick randomly? store closes for the day? we're talking about moving the responsibility of fearing for your job being lost if you can't find somebody to cover your shift off of the employee.
what's the sane amount here? charge more? allow it more with less (no?) repercussions?
They should charge enough to be able to afford to treat their employees like human beings - and human being sometimes get sick. How is hard for you to understand? Do you really have that little empathy towards service workers?
> They should charge enough to be able to afford to treat their employees like human beings - and human being sometimes get sick. How is hard for you to understand?
so you would agree that (at their current $6-8 drink average), they are NOT charging enough to support their employees like human beings (being able to factor in that any barista should be allowed the right to call in sick 5 days with no notice a quarter)
Is that a fair summary?
How many days are they currently factoring in? 0, right? Because all baristas need to fear getting fired over take 1 sick day a quarter (call out unpaid with no notice) or need somebody to cover it right
So, how much do drink and food prices need to go up at starbucks to support 5 sick days per quarter per barista instead of the current 0?
Their current margins are 75%. Do they need margins to go to... 85%? 95%? 105%? 115%? What's the cost of a barista taking a sick day once a quarter? What's the cost to a store's bottom line per day of 5 baristas taking a sick day 5 times a quarter? What if they do it all at once? Close the store for the day, miss the revenue/sales?
Starbucks is, like many large corporations right now, making record profits.
Their margins are already plenty high. They just need to stop prioritizing executives' and shareholders' pocketbooks (shock! heresy!), and start prioritizing the human beings that depend on their jobs there to put food on the table.
How much of that would you like to see them give up in order to appease the employees to your standards? Would you like to see their net margin at 0%? 1%? Do they deserve to make any profit in your mind?
You're saying they make too much profit. That's fair. You'd like to see them to treat their employees better at the expense of making less profit. I just don't know how realistic that is...
Personal single-point anecdote burned into my memory: at my last restaurant job, I did a great job, had perfect attendance, and great reviews. Upon injuring my back, I was let go on my 3rd day calling out and my manager enthusiastically "encouraged to reapply for the position when I was feeling better!".
It was the moment I realized I needed to make myself a better future.
Keep in mind that the minimum number of working hours to qualify for those benefits is 20hrs/wk, and getting that isn't a guarantee. (Anecdotally - I had ~30hrs of availability and I wouldn't get scheduled for more than 12hrs most weeks, and my coworkers were in similar spots.) A union, ideally, would ensure that benefits like your health insurance can't be taken from you because the company won't let you work long enough to qualify for it.
You know, there's a huge range of things between labor representatives and Soviet communism. Nobody is going around calling unionized actors communists.
Your classist rant is dumb, bad, and so poorly thought out I don't even know where to begin other than possibly accusing you of being a shill bought and paid for Starbuck's PR team to astroturf anti-union sentiments.
You sound like someone who's either never had to do a hard job, like food service, or your a fellow worker so inculcated with corporate propaganda you come across like a Clayton Bigsby-esque caricature.
All workers should be treated fairly, paid a living wage, and not be treated like robots to be thrown away at the slightest inconvenience. This is what a union does.
Friendly reminder: tips are not paid to an employer, they are paid directly to the employee. An employer cannot withhold tips in any circumstance because tips are not their property. Withholding tips is explicitly theft.
Feels like pretty clear behavior from starbucks to try and convince people they're better off not being in a union. When in actuality they probably wouldn't have changed anything for the other stores, had stores not unionized.
147 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 214 ms ] threadAmerican liberals need to walk the talk. But it seems so many of them are just closet Republicans especially when the idealism costs them money. I haven't forgotten how Bernie Sanders was silenced.
"Even if an employer is caught, the penalties are generally not severe enough to change their future behavior. The two primary penalties that DOL uses are civil money penalties and liquidated damages. Employers who repeatedly or willfully violate the minimum wage and overtime requirements may be subjected to civil monetary penalties of up to $1,100 for each violation, but DOL seldom uses these penalties (Bobo, 2009)."[0]
[0]https://smlr.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/Documents/Cente...
Sometimes the employer is also acting as a worker but not necessarily and they get to keep the surplus either way
That seems like a pretty clear distinction to me
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sV5P59KbkmE/hqdefault.jpg
"Don't protect your rights or your employer will break the law!"
Well, the NLRB, one of the arbiters of labor laws, doesn't say "maybeeeee", it says they _are_ breaking labor laws.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Strictly speaking, a century's worth of American labor law also matter. Since we're listing things that the average hn user is unfamiliar with.
the same for raises, etc. The contract should have all of that spelled out. If not then the union failed at the their job.
That's a violation of federal labor law.
https://www.7shifts.com/blog/restaurant-tip-pooling-laws/
Now, I'm not a lawyer, labor or otherwise, so I'm not sure how the law works when you provide benefits to non-union shops but not to union shops, but that's what the NLRB is for.
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...
They didn’t keep tips, they withheld the convenience from customers. Shitty, but not exactly theft.
Sure, they're only withholding the convenience from the customers, but how much real impact does this have on the tips given? I know I've personally had to forego giving tips before due to lack of cash.
Starbucks is not really set up to have the kind of slimy, lawful evil middle management that can be really good at union busting. Guile and misanthropy aren't exactly hallmarks of Starbucks staff. The stuff they're doing now is really obviously going to get them into trouble. This is not exactly subtle:
“At my store, it did have a negative impact — we had our election finalized right as they rolled out these new benefits,” says Alisha Humphrey, a Starbucks union leader in Oklahoma City. So as happy as we were that people won, we were told that since we won our election, we were not getting credit card tipping or the raises. Our manager met with everyone and told us that if we transferred to another store, you would make $1.50 more and credit card tipping. And some did transfer.”
They said it was a safety issue.
Then it was pointed out that they'd only removed them at the stores where they were unionized or were in the process of doing it, and they had very little explanation for why the mats were safe in non-union stores.
Second:
(1) any change to the contract has to be approved by the union. That includes raises and the like, yes. (2) that can literally be an email from Starbucks to the union's lawyer saying "we're making these changes" and an email back from the union lawyer saying "cool, sounds good". (3) union lawyers work for the union members. They almost never have a reason to reject a purely positive change, and turn-around for simple positive changes can be 24 hours easily (4) if the union wants more, they'll still accept the positive change and then separately negotiate an even larger change.
If there's an active strike negotiation going on, the company may not want to give an intermediate positive change because it weakens their bargaining power.
If the change is a mix of positive and negative, things may go differently.
Do you have anything to back this up? It appears to just be your opinion presented as fact. While I’d love to take your word on your opinion presented as a fact; I would prefer to see some data or documentation to back it up. Thanks!
It seems to me that Starbucks is pulling a “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas!” here.
On one hand I can see why they’d do that, on the other hand they still need to operate within federal employment law and it sounds like the NLRB says they aren’t. Presumably they can challenge that in court if they disagree?
On the other hand, the entire job of a union busting consulting firm is to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about unions. The claim that unions would take actions, or fail to take actions, to make it less likely for their members to receive a pay raise, is the kind of claim that a union busting consulting firm would likely make. This is Public Relations 101.
Is the claim defendable, probably not, but the NLRB just found that Starbucks is trying to discourage stores from unionizing (which sounds like something they would do...) So I'm much more inclined to believe they're being unhelpful in union negotiations than a newly minted union is.
The union does not appear to be new at least to me. It seems like the StarBucks union is apart of a larger organization of unions.
So this isn’t a _new_ union or a union _moving fast and breaking things_ it’s a conglomerate of other much veteran unions.
> Starbucks Workers United is a national collective of Starbucks Partners who help organize workplaces alongside Workers United Upstate, a union with members across many industries, including the coffee industry.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2022/12/19/starbucks-union-...
Less than 2 years from your own article.
That counts as newly minted. Also how many of those locations have a contract at this point? That's the bigger and more relevant piece of this. The fact that other unions are helping them out, doesn't mean that those other unions have negotiated with Starbucks. That's it's own thing that makes every union negotiation different.
Nope, you’re just pro union so you don’t see it as anything but black and white.
Nope, you're just anti union so you don't see nuance against your worldview, you just trust what corporations tell you.
Wow, you're sooo edgy.
In other news wolf says he doesn't prey on sheep.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2023/03/29/1166277326/starbucks-bernie-s...
This isn't obviously a purely positive change. Maybe some employees would prefer a current cash-only tip policy (maybe they think the tips are larger in cash; maybe less than 100% of those cash tips find their way onto income tax forms; maybe their paychecks are garnished or subject to a income sharing/alimony/child support arrangement while folding cash isn't; maybe they like getting the tip immediately and using it to buy lunch or gas that day rather than getting it later via payroll).
These are things that a union representing the employees must be consulted on and the story paints this as a purely positive change, but there are times in my life where I'd rather have gotten $10 in cash before lunch than $12 two weeks later in my paycheck.
Also you didn't take tips home directly after the shift you'd get it later as they usually shared tips across shifts so closing the store or working any other slow shift wouldn't hurt financially.
I don’t understand why people expect labor to be able to play hardball while also trying to benefit from a cooperative relationship with the adversarial partner.
A union meanwhile has a strong incentive to keep the company viable, otherwise they have a lot of out of work members
Look we know why unions got started and the human condition hasn't changed. There are people out there who would reintroduce child labour if they could get away with it. Guess who makes sure that they can't?
So...the question now becomes: How do you feel about illegal wildcat strikes? Would you support abolishment of the NLRB? Would you support reversal of the Taft Hartley act? Which side are you actually on?
> I don’t understand why people expect labor to be able to play hardball while also trying to benefit from a cooperative relationship with the adversarial partner.
I don't understand why people think it's not an adversarial relationship without a union. The workers are trying to get the most value for their labor, the company wants to get the most labor for its money. The difference is without a union the company has more power than you do.
Outside of the smallest businesses, most individual workers are disposable as far as the company is concerned. Their duties will be picked up by other employees and there's no rush to replace them. The company won't be substantially harmed by losing one worker, for the most part. There are of course exceptions, generally in small organizations or specialized skillsets, where individuals can be extremely hard to replace, but those cases are not the norm.
On the flip side most workers who lose their job have an immediate problem. Almost 2/3 of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. If they lose their job they have at most a few weeks before they're missing payments. No longer having a job with no immediate prospect to replace it poses an imminent threat to the stability of their life.
This gives employers a massive amount of leverage to push for the absolute minimum they can get away with before employees start saying "I'd rather starve", while employees have little to push back with.
A union attempts to balance the scales by turning the workforce in to a combined threat. No longer is the company negotiating against an individual, it's one or more entire classes of workers that they stand to lose and have to replace if they don't come to an agreement.
No, it can’t. If it requires a contract amendment, it has to be ratified by the membership, not “union lawyers” (who probably wouldn’t be in the direct chain of contact; contract changes would usually go through the unions bargaining staff, who might consult with lawyers, as the main contact.)
This is a lie and is peddled by pro union lawyers and activists. It goes both ways. Anyone who’s worked for a union or with one knows that they most certainly make negotiating directly harder. This is one of the main points of a union.
A google search for "starbucks site:NLRB.gov" gives a ton of results and none of the first 10 were obviously related to this complaint. If anyone can find a link it would be helpful.
You might also be interested in reading about why the NLRB was formed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Board
Basically we have a lot of rules about the relationship between unions and companies because when we didn't do that there was a lot of violence.
That kind of violence...
It makes them look petty, it will add friction to their relationship with the unions, and it probably costs them a little extra to deliberately exclude a relatively small number of locations from the ability to tip than it would to just universally roll it out.
It shouldn't take much of a fine to convince them to give up on it. The bad PR alone would probably be enough.
I'm not sure about that. Plenty of companies receive fines for doing shady and illegal things and I don't think their bottom lines change much as a result.
Caring about looking petty has never once crossed Starbuck's radar. Union and non-union stores look the same to customers (except now some allow credit card tipping), so customers would only know about this at all if they're in tune with this type of news.
Presumably the employees in unionized stores got some benefits from the union (higher wages, stability? Otherwise what's the point of the union.) So they must already have some baseline they negotiated and have been happy with.
Starbucks is rolling out a different model to it's not structured employee situations, this is both their right since the rigidity of the union isn't there, and perhaps it's needed there more.
As a layperson that "not relying on tips" is a goal that a union should provide (else what's the point?) So it's weird that they now want those too.
Totally get why the union doesn't like it but it's kinda one sided. You are either married or you okay the field.
On the margin at some point it's going to just be the same as a price raise (coffee is 5 bucks rather than 4) which obviously impacts business at least somewhat.
Credit card integration obviously generates more tipping, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it.
This is because once they see the prompt, many people think of the tip as mandatory (vs may not have thought about it) - or they don't have cash but now can tip. A good thing. I always tip well.
Now coffee becomes a thing you tip for, for these people. Totally voluntary.
For those people, this raises the effective price of a cup of coffee.
Getting Starbucks now becomes a costlier habit. At the margins this can drive someone to go elsewhere, skip, etc (basic supply and demand.)
This may not apply to some given individual but across millions of customers over a long time price including tip obviously affects quantity demanded.
And doubly so when in the midst of doing all this, Starbucks moves up the wages of their workers, but much less so if you're in the union.
i.e. Now you have a situation where unionized workers are being paid less than non-unionized workers, AND being denied access to tips.
I'm not sure how you can look at that scenario and say "I don't understand the union's grievance". I think it's more than "doesn't like it". Which is why the NLRB sided with them on all points of the issue. Starbucks is only union-hostile and petty about it too - around here they also got in trouble for removing padded foam mats behind counters (for reducing fatigue/foot pain), but only from the unionizing stores, and then tried to claim it was done for "safety" reasons (and had no real answer why, if so, it wasn't being done across the board).
So this is all pretty brand new. The union, I presume, wants ALL stores to be unionized, and wants ALL stores to have CC tip options, and for ALL stores to have those other union-negotiated benefits.
Rolling out the ability to accept CC tips as a strictly non-union perk is 100% a union-busting power play.
[1] https://www.vox.com/recode/22825850/starbucks-union-first-or...
>As a layperson that "not relying on tips" is a goal [...] So it's weird that they now want those too.
The goal is to benefit the worker. Tips are culturally embedded and a significant amount of money. It's weird to think the union wouldn't want that for their members. Would guaranteed higher pay be better? Yes. Is that an actual either/or option? No.
>Totally get why the union doesn't like it but it's kinda one sided. You are either married or you okay the field.
What does this even mean? What are the arbitrary rules you think should apply? Being in a union shouldn't mean its OK to be screwed with by SB management at every opportunity.
Just sounds to me like they don't actually have the leverage they promised their members to extract better pay, and are now whining "no fair" for having to sleep in the bed they made.
If employees get "hardcore" about creating limits on how the company can hire/pay/whatever, it obviously changes how the company engages with those employees as well.
To wit, if you force me to sign in blood for everything I have to give you, I am not going to give you anything else.
This isn't the union failing to negotiate a good deal, or being sticklers about procedure and thus preventing union employees from getting what non-union employees are being given. Starbucks is deliberately using this as a way to sabotage the union, by refusing to even offer them the same terms as non-union employees. This is illegal.
Since the terms are already different, how do you compare if the union rate (no CC tips) is better than the non-union rate (with CC tips?)
It is painfully clear that this is a deliberate union-busting tactic on Starbucks' part. The only reason they gave any stores these benefits is in order to make the union look bad.
This is illegal.
Remember, the employer/employee relationship is an inherently unequal one. The freedom of the employer to do certain things is curtailed for the common good, in exchange for substantial power and economic advantages.
I'm really just shocked by this sentiment that being in a union somehow ops you into to getting illegally screwed around.
Chosing to be in the union means you want the negotiated salary, and you want to be shielded from the outcome of your work a bit (we all make the same regardless of how we perform, short of being so bad that you get fired)
The stability of compensation implies... Stability of compensation. You get the negotiated rate.
Tips are the opposite of that. Tips are performance based and someone providing great customer service (individual or on store level) is going to get more. That's not in line with the union mindset so I don't see why that would be expected.
I also don't see why SBUX should go out of its way to benefit the union. The unions explicit mission is to insert itself between SBUX and the employees, where the employee relationship is now more with the union rather than the company. There's no expectation of the company giving the union more power if it doesn't need to.
I guess this case will come down to whether this is really illegal or not. We'll see.
I take issue with this framing. This has some implication of a malicious, or rent-seeking, third party, interfering with SBUX and its employees. Except that it's a union -of- employees.
And the union wants a better/equal salary. But SBUX wants to pay a tip-dependent wage and then remove tipping options from those stores. You can't say, objectively, "Well, the union wants everyone paid equally/fairly, and they've got that now, what's the big deal?" when the wages being paid equally/fairly are predicated on tip income.
By your logic, if a restaurant workers union wanted to have everyone on equal wages and remove tipping from the equation, they should be happy to have tips removed and have everyone making $2.13/hr (well, it'd have to be $7.25/hr) because hey, it's equal, and all they need to do now is negotiate that rate up, right?
I am not prepared to argue the details of the barista labor market but SBUX has a reputation for taking good care of their employees, compared to other places that hire that type of talent (401k, tuition coverage, etc.) Meaning, it expects employees to work hard/go above and beyond and tries to do the same for them - at least in their own assessment and I bet many employees agree.
The employees who chose to unionize presumably didn't like what the company was offering them on its own and decided to lever up their demands. That changes the relationship from "taking good care of each other" to bounds by rigid rules. Once you bind me by rigid rules, I am not giving you anything extra (if for no other reason as I can use that as leverage in our next negotiation which is what you're forcing me to do)
Since when? You're just making up arbitrary nonsense. Every business transaction with a tip is negotiated rate + tip.
Think of it as firing a whistleblower for poor performance: it's never a good look and ought to impose a supersized burden of proof on the employer even in the rare cases where it's true.
There is no need to perform mental gymnastics when Occam's razor perfectly applies.
> From free coffee to competitive pay, Starbucks is proud to offer a comprehensive compensation and benefits package to our eligible part-time and full-time partners. Benefits include 100% tuition coverage through our Starbucks College Achievement Plan, health coverage with a variety of plans to choose from, and stock & savings programs like our equity reward program, Bean Stock. What’s more, Starbucks offers flexible scheduling and opportunities for paid time off. Visit starbucksbenefits.com for details.
This is a non union store to my knowledge.
Looking at this as pessimistically as possible, I'll guess nobody is getting 40 solid hours a week (aka they strategically cycle through 20 to 30 hour/week part time employees)
7 days a week, 25 hours a week, let's say you don't work 3 days (you are 100% off, not on call in case the store gets busy or something)
25 hours a week, 4 days a week. about 6.25 hours a shift. let's say it's $16/hr
$100 in a 6.25 hour day, 4 days a week, $400/week gross
Let's say you don't work at all 4 weeks of the year (store closed for holiday, you take unpaid vacation/sick time/call out, you don't use PTO, i don't know). 52 weeks a year, say you work 48 full.
$16/hr, 25 hours a week, 48 weeks a year: $19.2k/yr before any tips
$16/hr, 30 hours a week, 48 weeks a year: $23.0k/yr before any tips
$16/hr, 35 hours a week, 48 weeks a year: $26.8k/yr before any tips
$16/hr, 40 hours a week, 48 weeks a year: $30.7k/yr before any tips
$16/hr, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year: $32.0k/yr before any tips
so the upper bound for what you'll most likely ever earn gross as a barista at starbucks is $32k/yr
say the union comes in, negotiates. what does this upper bound increase to?
Reasonable sick time allocation without fear of being fired?
"can employees in your non-union stores request 5 days off unpaid if they are sick without fear of being fired"
they would say "absolutely"
but you are saying "most likely not"
who is being dishonest?
if most of your employees are in that 20-35 hour range with no fear of overtime, aren't you able to say "so and so is sick, let me just call somebody else who is being under-utilized/has availability?"
If an employee is sick and can’t find someone to cover, it is typically considered a missed shift on their part.
You feelings might tell you one thing, but it’s worth actually checking that against the facts on the ground.
I'm curious though... What do you think the incentive is for people demanding benefits they already secretly have? Why do you think they're making it up? Its obvious why management would make it up but why the employee?
I've been one so here let me just tell you. You have to call up your coworkers on their days off and beg them to cover you. You promise or call in favors, you convince someone to give up time with their family or skip class or to work a double shift for you. If you can't get anyone to do it you work sick.
If you can't get it covered and actually don't go to work the manager will work the shift and hold it against you forever. They can fire you for it the first time and they really might, it all depends on your relationship with them. At the very least your relationship, whatever it was, is badly damaged. They make the schedule so I hope you don't need consistent hours, or a specific day off for class or anything.
> who is being dishonest?
Neither. Your hypothetical is wrong. Management would point you to the gargantuan employee handbook that all employees sign as a condition of employment. Somewhere in there it states that shift coverage is the employee's job and that company profits/image are of utmost importance. Management knows the hourly workers are easily replaceable warm bodies.
No, this isn't that simple, and asking this question makes me ask how much experience you have with service work to even question the justification of a union. People who are working part-time are usually juggling multiple jobs, childcare, or other life circumstances which makes their hours not that flexible. Additionally, in order to avoid being eligible for full-time benefits you are literally unable to call in someone else who might have availability. Calling in sick suddenly usually means the team has to work short that shift, or someone else agrees to work your shift in that you owe them later with the understanding cost that they won't be working a shift at another time, leaving the shift they aren't working also short a member, thus cascading the issue.
https://www.compt.io/hr-articles/how-to-reduce-worker-turnov....
then some articles from google say 140% turnover
https://www.google.com/search?q=starbucks+barista+turnover
they don't correlate well
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SBUX/starbucks/pro...
they have 75% margins on their coffee as is, yet their net margins are 10% company wide. the average drink in my experience is $6-$8 before a tip. how much more do they need to charge their customers in order to make "starbucks will be less strict and more understanding about their employees needing unpaid time off randomly without having to worry about it counting as a missed shift/needing to get it covered"? they only have that policy because otherwise their bottom line would get affected, right?
what's realistic? 2 random sick days a quarter per employee? 4 a year? sick bank hours accrued?
if this, then that
if "employees taking time off without any notice (sick time) disrupts the schedule/store operations", then "the store will suffer financially"
if "the store suffers financially", then "the loss needs to be made up elsewhere in order to be offset"
if "the loss needs to be made up elsewhere", then "the money needs to come from somewhere"
if "the money to offset the loss needs to come from somewhere", then "prices need to be increased"
therefore, in order for ALL workers to be allowed to take SOME sick time off (time off without much notice) without retribution, prices need to be increased even further
if prices need to be increased even further, you might alienate away even more of your existing or potential customer base (prices already very high for what they offer relative to their competition)
if you alienate away more customers, you lose money
therefore, you're asking the business to lose money at the expense of their dispensable/replaceable entry level jobs. i don't mean for that to sound as cold and heartless and immoral and rude as it does. i'm not some high level executive who only thinks in terms of MBA. i'm just trying to show perspective to both sides of the bargaining equation. imagine if the entire staff could call out sick whenever they wanted without consequence twice a week. the store would have to close down, wouldn't it? where's the balance?
is the balance supposed to be exactly where it is now? you'd argue it needs to be more in favor of the worker, but you also admit to not putting much effort/thought into thinking of the business side, becasue you're arguing it's already too much in favor of the business side
Yes I am. That's exactly what it comes down to.
I uncompromisingly believe that making profit while not providing a living wage and sick time is immoral and should not be allowed. Maybe they can do both, maybe they can't. They put themselves in the position of needing to find out though.
> To maintain their profit margins and offset these costs, a business owner may need to consider increasing prices for their products, which could potentially impact their customer base. However, it's important to balance the financial considerations with the well-being of employees and the long-term health of the business. Prioritizing the health and safety of employees, providing flexible sick leave policies, and ensuring adequate staffing levels can also contribute to better customer satisfaction and long-term profitability.
The sheer ignorance of this comment is astounding.
tomorrow you're the starbucks CEO
instead of focusing on maximizing shareholder profit, you want to keep profit the same as it is now, but you also want to be a good moral person and listen to the complaints about "baristas need to be able to make $16/hr and have up to 5 'i can't come in for whatever reason despite being scheduled and i don't want to rush to get it covered/make it the store's problem and not mine' days a quarter"
how much MORE do you have to raise the drink prices from $6-8 per drink before tip to pull that off? serious question
you're at 75% margin when a drink is $7 (hypothetical but probably within a ballpark)
do you need to raise margins to 85% to be able to support baristas needing 5 unpaid random days off a quarter? 5 * 4 quarters = 20 a year
i don't think margins after what you charge the customer can stay the same while also enabling baristas to call out (what effects does that have on a store's daily sales/revenue/profit? they're linked, right? less baristas, customers get pissed, walk out, cancel orders, more mistakes made, or people see it is too busy and don't want to wait and don't order)
so you need to increase margins in order to support bartsias being allowed to basically, mess up the daily shift scheduling dynamic. somebody calling out randomly for being sick without being able to find a cover can probably cost the store... up to 20% of its revenue/sales/profit a day? 10%? 5%? 25%?
say you have 4-5 baristas per shift during busy hours. they can all call out sick randomly? store closes for the day? we're talking about moving the responsibility of fearing for your job being lost if you can't find somebody to cover your shift off of the employee.
what's the sane amount here? charge more? allow it more with less (no?) repercussions?
so you would agree that (at their current $6-8 drink average), they are NOT charging enough to support their employees like human beings (being able to factor in that any barista should be allowed the right to call in sick 5 days with no notice a quarter)
Is that a fair summary?
How many days are they currently factoring in? 0, right? Because all baristas need to fear getting fired over take 1 sick day a quarter (call out unpaid with no notice) or need somebody to cover it right
So, how much do drink and food prices need to go up at starbucks to support 5 sick days per quarter per barista instead of the current 0?
Their current margins are 75%. Do they need margins to go to... 85%? 95%? 105%? 115%? What's the cost of a barista taking a sick day once a quarter? What's the cost to a store's bottom line per day of 5 baristas taking a sick day 5 times a quarter? What if they do it all at once? Close the store for the day, miss the revenue/sales?
Aside from that, if they can't afford to treat their employees with dignity, they shouldn't be in business. They can, though.
Their margins are already plenty high. They just need to stop prioritizing executives' and shareholders' pocketbooks (shock! heresy!), and start prioritizing the human beings that depend on their jobs there to put food on the table.
How much of that would you like to see them give up in order to appease the employees to your standards? Would you like to see their net margin at 0%? 1%? Do they deserve to make any profit in your mind?
You're saying they make too much profit. That's fair. You'd like to see them to treat their employees better at the expense of making less profit. I just don't know how realistic that is...
Personal single-point anecdote burned into my memory: at my last restaurant job, I did a great job, had perfect attendance, and great reviews. Upon injuring my back, I was let go on my 3rd day calling out and my manager enthusiastically "encouraged to reapply for the position when I was feeling better!".
It was the moment I realized I needed to make myself a better future.
t. former barista
You sound like someone who's either never had to do a hard job, like food service, or your a fellow worker so inculcated with corporate propaganda you come across like a Clayton Bigsby-esque caricature.
All workers should be treated fairly, paid a living wage, and not be treated like robots to be thrown away at the slightest inconvenience. This is what a union does.