Spilling the Beans About Starbucks' Union-Busting Tactics

Put down that grande non-fat caramel macchiato or whatever Starbucks concoction you're drinking. Turns out the coffee giant has a nasty history of being anti-barista, anti-union, and thus anti-Employee Free Choice Act as well.

The National Labor Relations Board has repeatedly found Starbucks guilty of illegally terminating, harassing, intimidating, and discriminating against employees attempting to unionize. Late last year, a judge ruled Starbucks had committed over a dozen violations of the National Labor Relations Act at a few New York stores. Starbucks has settled five such labor disputes in the last few years in New York, Minnesota, and Michigan, spending millions on legal fees to avoid exposing their anti-worker ways.

To make matters worse, Starbucks has led the charge on a so-called Employee Free Choice Act "compromise," joining Costco and Whole Foods to form the Committee for Level Playing Field. This Orwellian-sounding group has come up with a "third way" on Employee Free Choice, which would require 70 percent of workers to sign union authorization cards instead of the far more manageable 50 percent initially proposed by this legislation.

We've known for a while where Starbucks' billionaire CEO Howard Schultz stands on unions. After all, it was Schultz who once said that if workers "had faith in me and my motives, they wouldn't need a union." Yet Starbucks pretends to be pro-barista, claiming to offer workers decent wages and health insurance. The reality is the company insures less than 42 percent of its 127,000 baristas in the U.S. As Liza Featherstone recently reported, even Wal-Mart, a company notorious for its anti-labor practices, insures 47 percent of its employees.

Like Wal-Mart, Starbucks offers its workers low wages averaging $7.75 an hour, and Starbucks also refuses to guarantee workers set hours. Instead, the company adheres to an Optimal Scheduling policy that requires baristas to make themselves available 70 percent of open store hours just to work full time in any given week. This means low-wage earning baristas often don't have time to take a second job. Moreover, it precludes tens of thousands of Starbucks employees from working the 240 hours per quarter needed to qualify for the company's health insurance.

Starbucks' ethical reputation is misleading, its "progressive" policies less substantive than the company's frothy beverages. Sign the memo to Howard Schultz insisting he allow workers to unionize.

Comments

[sanity2008]

Yes, they succeed for awhile on the sweat of their cheap labor just as all corpororations do in the U.S.

[marlovian]

Just can't wait to enjoy my ten dollar unionized latte.

[KillTheMessenger]

Yawn. If you want a white collar job, go to college for four years or to university for eight and do your dues learning. Then you won't have to work for employers who are making their profits by exploiting you.

Duh!

[FessorFrink]

No business wants unions, period! That is why the unions need to be stronger so that workers get a living wage. Even in the cases where employees are paid well without unionization, it can still be a problem since there are important HR concerns that can be placed without union contract such as due process for letting someone go without cause. This is a lot more than such getting paid. There are union problems, but they are still outweighed by the good they do.

[provgrays]

And their coffee sucks too.

[alkamm]

How awesome to work at a place that charges for WIFI, sells coffee that's so expensive that they can afford to buy overpriced real estate, enrich levels of corporate idiots, and cut costs on wages and insurance. Starbucks is a ridiculous cult of branding that deserves to go the way of our failed auto companies and banks.
The unionization of Starbucks and Wal Mart would help those of your peers not lucky enough to live off their parents' insurance and wallets. And there's a trickle down effect if they raise wages and benefits in that they are encouraging better planning rather than exploiting the naive youths and older people who take jobs that don't even allow them to subsist, but wildly enrich their corporate masters.

[aramos]

A union to serve coffee> I'll buy it from the street vendor, thank you.

[mortgagejake]

I used to work at Starbucks, and I have to say it is an awesome place to work. They really do take care of their employees. I am all for unions, but I never felt like we needed one at Sbux. You mentioned income from working there. It is much better than minimum wage, and then you add in tips, which can be $3.00/hour during good weeks. The stores that I had worked at have always been adaptable to my schedule, even when I was a student, working 40 hours at Sbux, and taking 20 credits a term.

Free coffee, free coffee beans, and 30% of all merchandise is a great deal as well.

There was also mention of insurance in this article. Keep in mind that most the people that are working at Starbucks are still kids. 18-24's. I was still on my parents insurance during that time, so I never needed to take advantage of the insurance. I know a lot of the people that I worked with had insurance either through their spouse or parents. Many more adults work at Walmart, so those numbers are skewed.

Howard Schultz was always considered a genius while working at Sbux, and it is true, when he was running the show, nothing went wrong. It was only when he left did things fall apart.

[DesertFlame]

Jake,

I am glad that you had such a great experience at Starbucks, for it offsets mine. I went to work at Starbucks in order to get health insurance for my family since we were self employed. Thank goodness for the tips (about $100 per week) because once my insurance kicked in, the premiums ate up my entire paycheck. Still I was happy to have the job, even if I just worked for insurance. Then after a year, my store got a new manager who did not see fit to ensure that I received the 20 hours a week that I needed to qualify for insurance. Therefore I lost my insurance for my family of five. The company's solution was to have employees call other stores and ask to work shifts all over town to get to the magic 20 hours a week.

I my eyes, the company has no heart.