22 ms·

Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

416 points by pmoriarty 4y ago

freediverx 4y ago
Does the NLRB have any teeth? Can they impose fines? I’ve yet to see any of these rulings result in any meaningful changes.
- washadjeffmad 4y ago
  Allowing the help to negotiate their compensation is punishment enough
  - andreareina 4y ago
    No it's not.
    - harvey9 4y ago
      The person you replied to used the phrase 'the help' rather than staff or workers. I take it to indicate sarcasm.
      - washadjeffmad 4y ago
        Years ago, one of our VPs, an old colleague, used the phrase "fraternizing with the help" to signal leadership's motives for an unusual and specific reorg. Someone was concerned that management was being too influenced by the suggestions of labor, and that's just not how chain of command works.
- infamouscow 4y ago
  Why would politicians bite the hand that feeds them?
  - dmix 4y ago
    It still happens if there's enough political capital at play. Florida just punished one of their state's biggest tax benefactors over a social policy. Whether the union question drives enough voters to care or a politician willing to stand up for the issue will be the central question.
- thesuitonym 4y ago
  Remember that fines for breaking the law are just factored into the cost of doing business.
- mshenfield 4y ago
  No. Companies just have to re-hire fired employees and pay lost wages and benefits. IMO Starbucks should pay a large punitive fine that gets split between the fired workers and the NLRB.
- advisedwang 4y ago
  Their orders have the same force as a court order, so there are penalties if you actively ignore an order. However the board is very limited in what they can order.
- debacle 4y ago
  The NLRB takes much more action against unions than for them.
nerdponx 4y ago
I want to know about closing stores in apparent retaliation against unionizing. This has been happening lately in Boston, with the Cambridge Milk Bar location and the Boylston Starbucks location. It seems like that's the new corporate tactic to try to discourage unionizing. Of course, if every store unionized, then they'd be forced to concede at some point that they still need to keep stores open in order to make money, but in the meantime it seems like it's an intimidation tactic and that should probably be illegal.
- outside1234 4y ago
  To this, it seems like a mechanism by which they are firing workers that are organizing and is just a scale motion over the same underlying illegal action.
- voidfunc 4y ago
  SCOTUS has said it is okay to close a place of business to avoid unionization of workers. Frankly I think this is fine, you can't compel someone to operate a business.
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    That makes sense for smaller businesses, where "closing" might mean closing the entire business. But the situation seems materially different for a large company like Starbucks, where each physical location is only a small part of their overall business operations. What SCOTUS ruling was that? I wonder if it applies to e.g. shutting down a warehouse or dismantling a department within the business, as opposed to shutting down a business entirely.
    - enraged_camel 4y ago
      One factor that might be relevant is that a lot (most?) Starbucks locations are franchises.
      - asah 4y ago
Overtonwindow 4y ago
This article made me curious, has any business tried to defend antiunion activities through a desire for free association? As in the business does not want to associate with unions. It made me curious because I've not seen that argument before, in the function of a union seems like it wants to force the company to associate with it whether the company wants to or not.
- currymj 4y ago
  Supreme Court ruled that public sector employees can't be required to pay union fees as a condition of employment, on First Amendment/free association grounds.
  - jonathankoren 4y ago
    Yeah, it the these workers get all the benefits too. Phunny how that happens.
- Convolutional 4y ago
  > the function of a union seems like it wants to force the company to associate with it whether the company wants to or not. The company might not want to associate with the union, but it seems that the workers working at the company do.
- ben7799 4y ago
  This is a very common tactic these companies typically use to discourage employees internally. Not that the company doesn't want to associate with a union but an attempt to convince workers that they shouldn't want to associate with a union. Lots of companies have been "caught" putting up signs in the break room next to the legally required signs about worker rights, they'll put up a sign in the room that tries to convince employees that Unions take away their rights.
- banannaise 4y ago
  You cannot "free association" your way out of legally required actions. You can't, say, refuse to deal with the IRS because it's your right not to associate with them.
binarymax 4y ago
Just a tangent that it's strange this is a local story for me (Rochester NY) and there is no local coverage - had to go all the way to the UK to learn about this!
- nerdponx 4y ago
  That's kind of wild, and a little concerning. 13 WHAM doesn't seem to have even a mention of this on their website. Is ABC connected to anti-labor interests?
  - ben7799 4y ago
    The TV industry and Hollywood treat workers horribly so it would make sense.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    ABC is owned by Disney, which has a fairly strong antiunion history, while WHAM is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a media organization known for being extremely conservative.
  - kevviiinn 4y ago
    Most media is simply a mouthpiece for the capital owning class. Of course it isn't in their interest to report on something like that
- wolfgang42 4y ago
  At 3:50: https://www.wxxinews.org/podcast/rochester-local-news/2023-03-02/todays-headlines-for-march-2 https://www.wxxinews.org/podcast/rochester-local-news/2023-0...
- deburo 4y ago
  Why is the BBC even reporting on this?
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    US news is at least as important to the UK as news of all of Europe combined if not more since it’s the biggest source of cultural imports and where its leaders and academics who don’t go to university at home go. This is broadly true for most countries which is why US news is news everywhere.
gwatch 4y ago
[dead]
skee8383 4y ago
The food service industry in America is about as corrupt as it gets, They don't pay a fair wage, they rely on extortion tactics (tipping) to float the cost of wages to the customer and the customer must pay for his meal and half the staffs wages as well or be labeled a bad person or in the customers mind, maybe even face a retaliation of some sort by the staff, i.e spitting in food, added to a blacklist etc. and they are actively fighting any attempts at unionization to boot.
- Supermancho 4y ago
  > The food service industry in America is about as corrupt as it gets I think that title is still held by politics.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- twodave 4y ago
  Not to mention the many various ways restaurants skirt the law with regard to overtime/doubletime. I've seen a lot of ways they screw this up, but perhaps the most common is by using the tipped employee minimum hourly wage (usually at least $3 less than minimum wage, and often as little as $2/hour) as the base rate for OT/DT premiums. This can end up shorting tipped employees as much as $12/hour on OT and $16/hour on DT. Alerting businesses to this fact is usually met with fingers in ears/closing eyes/singing type reactions. Source: I work for a payroll company
itisit 4y ago
No argument that these workers have a right to unionize, but I find many of their demands petulant and counterproductive. Have a look: https://sbworkersunited.org/noneconomic-proposals https://sbworkersunited.org/noneconomic-proposals
- tokai 4y ago
  Which ones? Most of it reads like things european unions have implemented.
- flimsypremise 4y ago
  pretty much all of these seem very normal and i'm actually shocked starbucks doesn't already have them in place. you can work 32 hours at a starbucks and not be considered full time? starbucks doesn't supply fresh aprons to everyone every shift?
  - tstrimple 4y ago
    Small point, but aren't aprons handed out and treated like uniforms in other companies? Employees take them home and launder them themselves? In any job I've had where I had to wear a specific company shirt, they were given to me and up to me to maintain.
    - runarberg 4y ago
      In my works this is usually as you describe. But at the same time it is also one of the top issues workers complain about and ripe for change. If your boss demands you wear specific clothes, and demands you should keep those clothes clean in your own time, they are effectively making you do more work after hours using tools and utilities that you also have to pay for. It is perfectly reasonable for a union to try to negotiate either: a) laundry pay and utility compensation, or b) for the company to do this work instead. In this case the union is demanding the latter.
      - tstrimple 4y ago
amurthy1 4y ago
Setting aside this specific case, what is a business supposed to do if a union's demands are unreasonable and make it infeasible to keep the business profitable? If they try and replace the unionized workers, that is frowned upon and in some cases illegal. If they shut down the business due to no longer being viable, that seems to also be legally murky. If a group of employees wants to band together and collectively bargain, that feels like it should be allowed, but if the company wants to completely sever ties with that group or if an employee wants to be hired and not associated with the group that should also be fine. I agree that the balance of power is tilted in favor of capital over labor and that imbalance has been continually growing over the past several decades, but it feels like there should be a better solution than legally protected unions. For example: - Increased relocation assistance for people who need to move for a job - Improved safety regulations, which is a common reason employees decide to unionize in the first place - Increased public sector employment to provide more alternatives to those in exploitative private sector jobs All of these seem like better ways the govt can help workers than legally protected unions.
- adorton 4y ago
  The company is supposed to negotiate with the union. That's the whole idea behind unions.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    Companies don't have to negotiate, they can Hardball if they want
- xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
  I'm not really going to answer this satisfactorily but the union doesn't have work if the employer doesn't exist. It's in the best interests of the union to negotiate in good faith to find the optimal arrangement for both parties. A successful, growing business means a growing union. The idea is that it should be a win-win. It's perfectly possible for a union to be unreasonable and for both parties to ultimately walk away with nothing. This has happened countless times and is somewhat inevitable for unsustainable businesses (or businesses which rely on another industry to be in a growth phase).
roody15 4y ago
Its funny to watch "progressive" mega corporations like Starbucks, Apple, Amazon + more skirt around unions. Essentially they use PR to say we are all for these corporate safe progressive topics... but any topics of worker rights, unions.. nope.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- MapsSlaps 4y ago
  Starbucks and Amazon are hardly "progressive". Most folks I know would describe them as pretty much bog standard big capitalist companies. Sure, they slap a rainbow logo on their twitter during June, but so does Raytheon. I'm less sure about Apple, which might actually have more of a progressive streak in it (I'm simply not knowledgable), but the other two are pretty much standard exploitative mega corps.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    Apple is absolutely ruthless toward employees. For example, they were the ringleader behind an illegal anti-poaching conspiracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
    - MapsSlaps 4y ago
      Oh totally, I was more remarking on whether they were progressive at all. That's the part I'm not sure about.
    - JKCalhoun 4y ago
      > they Well, Steve Jobs specifically. Maybe because I am in denial, but I like to sort of differentiate the two. However you feel about the twain a decade ago, to be blunt, Steve is no more and Apple continues on.
      - 4y ago
charcircuit 4y ago
Companies shouldn't forced to permit the creation of unions. Unions are a tumor and it only makes sense for a company to remove it. If employees want to be able to threaten to quit employers should be able to threaten to fire them. The negotiation power should go both ways.
- hellotomyrars 4y ago
  Please explain why they are a tumor? Seriously, I’m interested to know why you think that. I am a member of a union and without it I would be significantly less well off. Am I a bad person because I want to be treated like a human instead of a replaceable cog in a machine?
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    It adds more risk if people collectively decided to stop working and becomes a headache. It is also less efficient in that you will have to spend more on compensation for people who otherwise would work for less. >Am I a bad person because I want to be treated like a human instead of a replaceable cog in a machine? No, but having replacables cogs lowers the risk for businesses.
- advisedwang 4y ago
  Governments shouldn't be forced to permit the creation of political parties. If citizens want the right to kick out the government, the government should have the right to kick citizens out of the country. See the flaw in both of these arguments is that governments and corporations aren't people and only exist to provide some societal benefit. the measure of what we should allow governments and companies to do is what makes for the best functioning society, not some random principal of symmetry.
- ssklash 4y ago
  > The negotiation power should go both ways. I think you fundamentally misunderstand unions and the worker-corporation relationship. Historically, and through to today, corporations have most/all of the power. Which is why things like child labor, 16 hour work days, etc. were very common, until workers unionized, effectively pooling their power in order to negotiate with corporations. If you didn't have to work as a child, or don't have to work longer than 8 hours, thank a union.
fallingfrog 4y ago
They closed the Starbucks in my city rather than recognize the union. Probably they'll reopen it later with all new people. It's purely an intimidation tactic. They are hoping to make an example of those workers who get out of line to strike fear into the hearts of the rest. My heart goes out to all the young, financially struggling workers who really just wanted some paid sick days and better treatment.
- peanuty1 4y ago
  Starbucks already pays higher than market wages and provides excellent benefits like tuition reimbursement.
  - hezralig 4y ago
    This isn't necessarily true. I have also asked a couple of baristas what their pay was like, and it seems like they do not give raises as frequently or pegged to CoL. Over COVID, I chatted with a barista that had been with Starbucks for 7-8 years who was telling me that he made .20 more than a new hire. It was interesting to get his point of view on the unionization details even though his location wasn't organizing.
fallingfrog 4y ago
As a side note, I find it just incredible that the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, actually campaigned for the president under the democratic party. And Hillary Clinton was going to make him labor secretary. When even the left leaning party is that right wing, something has gone terribly wrong.
- hellotomyrars 4y ago
  It’s all well and good until it impacts your wallet. The hypocrisy is depressing but not surprising. It could also be argued, )I hate the argument but it is true) that he has to oppose any and all unionization efforts because as a publicly traded company they are required to look out for the interests of their shareholders. Which comes back to the same place ultimately. And I have no sympathy for him regardless of his excuse.
  - cool_dude85 4y ago
    >It could also be argued, )I hate the argument but it is true) that he has to oppose any and all unionization efforts because as a publicly traded company they are required to look out for the interests of their shareholders. Anything could be argued, but this argument is not true. Plenty of publicly traded companies have unionized workforces and do not face shareholder lawsuits for it. Can you find an example of a publicly traded company losing a shareholder lawsuit for not running underhanded and illegal union-busting tactics?
    - hellotomyrars 4y ago
      How many publicly traded companies had their workforce unionize without protest in the last 30 years or maybe longer? The model also helps make a difference. Starbucks can kill a store to prevent unionization from taking up, but not all business make this a valid method of squashing unionization. To be clear, it is obvious and plain to see that Starbucks and other corporations view their workforce unionizing as a bad thing for them. The reason they are that is because they believe, reasonably or otherwise, that it will impact their bottom line. The money is what the care about. It is the only thing they care about. Their natural incentive structure of being a publicly traded company is specifically about the pursuit of the almighty dollar. I work for a non-profit and when unionization occurred there was no pushback about it. My industry is also not traditional in so far as our funding is almost exclusively from federal and state health agencies. But the increase in wages and quality of life for the members was measurable, and the demand for home health care only continues to rise as the population ages, as well as social/economics factors around the expectation and realities of family members taking care of family members as they age.
gregors 4y ago
I make it a point to try visit the unionized store in my area. I'd love to see a comparison of pay/benefits of a typical US Starbucks vs the ones I see in say Munich.
- peanuty1 4y ago
  I make it a point to try to avoid the unionized stores.
supernova87a 4y ago
Can news articles/reporters ever quote the actual original court ruling that they use to source their stories? I find it amazingly rare that journalists feel that they should show people where they get the key finding of their story, and rather lazily present their story as if they were the controlling authority and only source of information. Given how rich the original information is to link to (like, a 200 page PDF ruling), this is a bit of journalistic travesty to leave it out. Compared to how much hearsay they seem to accept as a source in day to day stories, yet go to lengths to name the person's name. And "For more information on this breaking issue, go to KABC.com!" Yeah, thanks a lot for that in-depth reporting! Does anyone know where to find the PDF of this one?
- gnicholas 4y ago
  Looks like it's here, linked from the NLRB website: https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45839c9e8e https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45839c9e8e
- clircle 4y ago
  Just another thing that the media does to lower its own reputation.
- odensc 4y ago
  Agree with your take, but in this case it was pretty easy to find the ruling on Google. Here's the case page [0] and the PDF [1]: [0]: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/03-CA-285671 https://www.nlrb.gov/case/03-CA-285671 [1]: https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45839c9e8e https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45839c9e8e (file download warning)
- spacephysics 4y ago
  Your first mistake was considering them journalists. Many who create click bait drool are like WIX “developers” calling themselves custom frontend engineers. Even a junior journalist would do something as simple as quote the actual case. Time and time again I see these articles and even basic things are factually incorrect. Even today I think there was a HN post about salesforce layoffs, quoted at 10k when it was 8k, and that wave happened in January when it was written as if there’s another wave coming.
theGnuMe 4y ago
I'm surprised we don't have a unionization app. With the technology we have today we should be able to do zero trust organizing. There should be a way to square the app with the NRLB so that some protections can get established before a hostile employer acts.
- advisedwang 4y ago
  The core of unionizing is getting the word out that unionizing is possible, beneficial and worth the risk. There are some places that tech can help, but largely it's a human-interaction problem. As an example, consider how to let someone know you're even considering unionizing. An app isn't able to find out who the people you need to reach out to are - that's work you'd have to do either way. It could automatically send a text or email when you've done that, but both of those are far inferior to just talking to the person. First of all nobody likes automatic messages and they're easy to ignore. Secondly it loses the ability to sound someone out slowly, which allows you to avoid dropping the U word and potentially tipping off management until you know the person. If its anonymous, the person is likely to ignore a message. Finally and most importantly, just info dumping union benefits comes across as a sales pitch and is very ineffective; it's better to have a conversation that gets to your co-workers needs at work and from there games out whether a union would help them.
- evanb 4y ago
  https://unitworkers.com/ https://unitworkers.com/
Alupis 4y ago
Honestly curious - is there any available data that demonstrates Unions are a net-benefit in modern times? Many of us have fond thoughts regarding Unions and the struggles they went through decades ago to achieve sane, safe, rewarding working conditions. What is left to fight for? In the past couple years, we have had story after story of Unions abusing power and harming companies and the public in the process. Is there good-doing I'm missing? Take Starbucks for example - already known for higher-than-average wages, college tuition sponsorship programs, management tracks and more - what is left to fight for? It's still nearly zero-skilled labor at the end of the day.
- shrimp_emoji 4y ago
  At minimum, you can argue it's game theoretical insurance. If Starbucks is so magnanimous towards their employees today, they may not be that way tomorrow. Corporate advocates for itself. Unions advocate for the employees. Ideally, they strike a balance so that nobody's satisfied and the best compromise is reached. Discarding unions leaves the door open for an imbalance of corporate power. (And, since corporations tend toward monopoly these days, that's a lot of corporate power.)
- VHRanger 4y ago
  There sure is! Here's a recent review: https://www.nber.org/papers/w29522 https://www.nber.org/papers/w29522 It's a pretty consistent finding among labor economics researchers that firms have monopsony power over workers. > What's left to fight for? The issue isnt whether they're well paid according to your subjective criteria. It's the ratio between how much the worker is paid and how much they produce for the firm. I talk about the "bargaining power ratio" concept here[1], but the microeconomics 201 concept is the ratio between marginal product of labor and pay can be thought of as the bargaining power ratio. If across the board workers have a low ratio, then they have a systematically low bargaining power, and unions would improve that. [1] https://www.singlelunch.com/2022/02/21/why-you-should-not-hire-a-real-estate-agent/ https://www.singlelunch.com/2022/02/21/why-you-should-not-hi...
  - Alupis 4y ago
prasadjoglekar 4y ago
Judge is a strong word here. This was an NLRB admin judge/bureaucrat which means this whole thing will be appealed to a real judicial branch court and tried.
olliej 4y ago
I like how the article states that "In recent months [Starbucks] has raised pay and made other changes in response to the discontent." No. It has made those changes in response to union activity. No changes happened until it became apparent the unionization was actually happening.
stefap2 4y ago
Problem is that people even take these jobs seriously. Starbucks job was something to do part-time for a couple of years while you are in school. Why would you spent time unionizing for that? It's never going to pay enough to live on.
- user3939382 4y ago
  Tell that to people counting on their job there to feed their kids, that it’s their fault they have the wrong job.

416 points by pmoriarty 4y ago

Does the NLRB have any teeth? Can they impose fines? I’ve yet to see any of these rulings result in any meaningful changes.

washadjeffmad 4y ago
Allowing the help to negotiate their compensation is punishment enough
- andreareina 4y ago
  No it's not.
  - harvey9 4y ago
    The person you replied to used the phrase 'the help' rather than staff or workers. I take it to indicate sarcasm.
    - washadjeffmad 4y ago
      Years ago, one of our VPs, an old colleague, used the phrase "fraternizing with the help" to signal leadership's motives for an unusual and specific reorg. Someone was concerned that management was being too influenced by the suggestions of labor, and that's just not how chain of command works.
infamouscow 4y ago
Why would politicians bite the hand that feeds them?
- dmix 4y ago
  It still happens if there's enough political capital at play. Florida just punished one of their state's biggest tax benefactors over a social policy. Whether the union question drives enough voters to care or a politician willing to stand up for the issue will be the central question.
thesuitonym 4y ago
Remember that fines for breaking the law are just factored into the cost of doing business.
mshenfield 4y ago
No. Companies just have to re-hire fired employees and pay lost wages and benefits. IMO Starbucks should pay a large punitive fine that gets split between the fired workers and the NLRB.
advisedwang 4y ago
Their orders have the same force as a court order, so there are penalties if you actively ignore an order. However the board is very limited in what they can order.
debacle 4y ago
The NLRB takes much more action against unions than for them.

nerdponx 4y ago

I want to know about closing stores in apparent retaliation against unionizing. This has been happening lately in Boston, with the Cambridge Milk Bar location and the Boylston Starbucks location. It seems like that's the new corporate tactic to try to discourage unionizing. Of course, if every store unionized, then they'd be forced to concede at some point that they still need to keep stores open in order to make money, but in the meantime it seems like it's an intimidation tactic and that should probably be illegal.

outside1234 4y ago
To this, it seems like a mechanism by which they are firing workers that are organizing and is just a scale motion over the same underlying illegal action.
voidfunc 4y ago
SCOTUS has said it is okay to close a place of business to avoid unionization of workers. Frankly I think this is fine, you can't compel someone to operate a business.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  That makes sense for smaller businesses, where "closing" might mean closing the entire business. But the situation seems materially different for a large company like Starbucks, where each physical location is only a small part of their overall business operations. What SCOTUS ruling was that? I wonder if it applies to e.g. shutting down a warehouse or dismantling a department within the business, as opposed to shutting down a business entirely.
  - enraged_camel 4y ago
    One factor that might be relevant is that a lot (most?) Starbucks locations are franchises.
    - asah 4y ago

Overtonwindow 4y ago

This article made me curious, has any business tried to defend antiunion activities through a desire for free association? As in the business does not want to associate with unions. It made me curious because I've not seen that argument before, in the function of a union seems like it wants to force the company to associate with it whether the company wants to or not.

currymj 4y ago
Supreme Court ruled that public sector employees can't be required to pay union fees as a condition of employment, on First Amendment/free association grounds.
- jonathankoren 4y ago
  Yeah, it the these workers get all the benefits too. Phunny how that happens.
Convolutional 4y ago
> the function of a union seems like it wants to force the company to associate with it whether the company wants to or not. The company might not want to associate with the union, but it seems that the workers working at the company do.
ben7799 4y ago
This is a very common tactic these companies typically use to discourage employees internally. Not that the company doesn't want to associate with a union but an attempt to convince workers that they shouldn't want to associate with a union. Lots of companies have been "caught" putting up signs in the break room next to the legally required signs about worker rights, they'll put up a sign in the room that tries to convince employees that Unions take away their rights.
banannaise 4y ago
You cannot "free association" your way out of legally required actions. You can't, say, refuse to deal with the IRS because it's your right not to associate with them.

binarymax 4y ago

Just a tangent that it's strange this is a local story for me (Rochester NY) and there is no local coverage - had to go all the way to the UK to learn about this!

nerdponx 4y ago
That's kind of wild, and a little concerning. 13 WHAM doesn't seem to have even a mention of this on their website. Is ABC connected to anti-labor interests?
- ben7799 4y ago
  The TV industry and Hollywood treat workers horribly so it would make sense.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  ABC is owned by Disney, which has a fairly strong antiunion history, while WHAM is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a media organization known for being extremely conservative.
- kevviiinn 4y ago
  Most media is simply a mouthpiece for the capital owning class. Of course it isn't in their interest to report on something like that
wolfgang42 4y ago
At 3:50: https://www.wxxinews.org/podcast/rochester-local-news/2023-03-02/todays-headlines-for-march-2 https://www.wxxinews.org/podcast/rochester-local-news/2023-0...
deburo 4y ago
Why is the BBC even reporting on this?
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  US news is at least as important to the UK as news of all of Europe combined if not more since it’s the biggest source of cultural imports and where its leaders and academics who don’t go to university at home go. This is broadly true for most countries which is why US news is news everywhere.

gwatch 4y ago

[dead]

skee8383 4y ago

The food service industry in America is about as corrupt as it gets, They don't pay a fair wage, they rely on extortion tactics (tipping) to float the cost of wages to the customer and the customer must pay for his meal and half the staffs wages as well or be labeled a bad person or in the customers mind, maybe even face a retaliation of some sort by the staff, i.e spitting in food, added to a blacklist etc. and they are actively fighting any attempts at unionization to boot.

Supermancho 4y ago
> The food service industry in America is about as corrupt as it gets I think that title is still held by politics.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
twodave 4y ago
Not to mention the many various ways restaurants skirt the law with regard to overtime/doubletime. I've seen a lot of ways they screw this up, but perhaps the most common is by using the tipped employee minimum hourly wage (usually at least $3 less than minimum wage, and often as little as $2/hour) as the base rate for OT/DT premiums. This can end up shorting tipped employees as much as $12/hour on OT and $16/hour on DT. Alerting businesses to this fact is usually met with fingers in ears/closing eyes/singing type reactions. Source: I work for a payroll company

itisit 4y ago

No argument that these workers have a right to unionize, but I find many of their demands petulant and counterproductive. Have a look: https://sbworkersunited.org/noneconomic-proposals https://sbworkersunited.org/noneconomic-proposals

tokai 4y ago
Which ones? Most of it reads like things european unions have implemented.
flimsypremise 4y ago
pretty much all of these seem very normal and i'm actually shocked starbucks doesn't already have them in place. you can work 32 hours at a starbucks and not be considered full time? starbucks doesn't supply fresh aprons to everyone every shift?
- tstrimple 4y ago
  Small point, but aren't aprons handed out and treated like uniforms in other companies? Employees take them home and launder them themselves? In any job I've had where I had to wear a specific company shirt, they were given to me and up to me to maintain.
  - runarberg 4y ago
    In my works this is usually as you describe. But at the same time it is also one of the top issues workers complain about and ripe for change. If your boss demands you wear specific clothes, and demands you should keep those clothes clean in your own time, they are effectively making you do more work after hours using tools and utilities that you also have to pay for. It is perfectly reasonable for a union to try to negotiate either: a) laundry pay and utility compensation, or b) for the company to do this work instead. In this case the union is demanding the latter.
    - tstrimple 4y ago

amurthy1 4y ago

Setting aside this specific case, what is a business supposed to do if a union's demands are unreasonable and make it infeasible to keep the business profitable? If they try and replace the unionized workers, that is frowned upon and in some cases illegal. If they shut down the business due to no longer being viable, that seems to also be legally murky. If a group of employees wants to band together and collectively bargain, that feels like it should be allowed, but if the company wants to completely sever ties with that group or if an employee wants to be hired and not associated with the group that should also be fine. I agree that the balance of power is tilted in favor of capital over labor and that imbalance has been continually growing over the past several decades, but it feels like there should be a better solution than legally protected unions. For example: - Increased relocation assistance for people who need to move for a job - Improved safety regulations, which is a common reason employees decide to unionize in the first place - Increased public sector employment to provide more alternatives to those in exploitative private sector jobs All of these seem like better ways the govt can help workers than legally protected unions.

adorton 4y ago
The company is supposed to negotiate with the union. That's the whole idea behind unions.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Companies don't have to negotiate, they can Hardball if they want
xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
I'm not really going to answer this satisfactorily but the union doesn't have work if the employer doesn't exist. It's in the best interests of the union to negotiate in good faith to find the optimal arrangement for both parties. A successful, growing business means a growing union. The idea is that it should be a win-win. It's perfectly possible for a union to be unreasonable and for both parties to ultimately walk away with nothing. This has happened countless times and is somewhat inevitable for unsustainable businesses (or businesses which rely on another industry to be in a growth phase).

roody15 4y ago

Its funny to watch "progressive" mega corporations like Starbucks, Apple, Amazon + more skirt around unions. Essentially they use PR to say we are all for these corporate safe progressive topics... but any topics of worker rights, unions.. nope.

deleted 4y ago
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MapsSlaps 4y ago
Starbucks and Amazon are hardly "progressive". Most folks I know would describe them as pretty much bog standard big capitalist companies. Sure, they slap a rainbow logo on their twitter during June, but so does Raytheon. I'm less sure about Apple, which might actually have more of a progressive streak in it (I'm simply not knowledgable), but the other two are pretty much standard exploitative mega corps.
- lapcat 4y ago
  Apple is absolutely ruthless toward employees. For example, they were the ringleader behind an illegal anti-poaching conspiracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
  - MapsSlaps 4y ago
    Oh totally, I was more remarking on whether they were progressive at all. That's the part I'm not sure about.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    > they Well, Steve Jobs specifically. Maybe because I am in denial, but I like to sort of differentiate the two. However you feel about the twain a decade ago, to be blunt, Steve is no more and Apple continues on.
    - 4y ago

charcircuit 4y ago

Companies shouldn't forced to permit the creation of unions. Unions are a tumor and it only makes sense for a company to remove it. If employees want to be able to threaten to quit employers should be able to threaten to fire them. The negotiation power should go both ways.

hellotomyrars 4y ago
Please explain why they are a tumor? Seriously, I’m interested to know why you think that. I am a member of a union and without it I would be significantly less well off. Am I a bad person because I want to be treated like a human instead of a replaceable cog in a machine?
- charcircuit 4y ago
  It adds more risk if people collectively decided to stop working and becomes a headache. It is also less efficient in that you will have to spend more on compensation for people who otherwise would work for less. >Am I a bad person because I want to be treated like a human instead of a replaceable cog in a machine? No, but having replacables cogs lowers the risk for businesses.
advisedwang 4y ago
Governments shouldn't be forced to permit the creation of political parties. If citizens want the right to kick out the government, the government should have the right to kick citizens out of the country. See the flaw in both of these arguments is that governments and corporations aren't people and only exist to provide some societal benefit. the measure of what we should allow governments and companies to do is what makes for the best functioning society, not some random principal of symmetry.
ssklash 4y ago
> The negotiation power should go both ways. I think you fundamentally misunderstand unions and the worker-corporation relationship. Historically, and through to today, corporations have most/all of the power. Which is why things like child labor, 16 hour work days, etc. were very common, until workers unionized, effectively pooling their power in order to negotiate with corporations. If you didn't have to work as a child, or don't have to work longer than 8 hours, thank a union.

fallingfrog 4y ago

They closed the Starbucks in my city rather than recognize the union. Probably they'll reopen it later with all new people. It's purely an intimidation tactic. They are hoping to make an example of those workers who get out of line to strike fear into the hearts of the rest. My heart goes out to all the young, financially struggling workers who really just wanted some paid sick days and better treatment.

peanuty1 4y ago
Starbucks already pays higher than market wages and provides excellent benefits like tuition reimbursement.
- hezralig 4y ago
  This isn't necessarily true. I have also asked a couple of baristas what their pay was like, and it seems like they do not give raises as frequently or pegged to CoL. Over COVID, I chatted with a barista that had been with Starbucks for 7-8 years who was telling me that he made .20 more than a new hire. It was interesting to get his point of view on the unionization details even though his location wasn't organizing.

fallingfrog 4y ago

As a side note, I find it just incredible that the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, actually campaigned for the president under the democratic party. And Hillary Clinton was going to make him labor secretary. When even the left leaning party is that right wing, something has gone terribly wrong.

hellotomyrars 4y ago
It’s all well and good until it impacts your wallet. The hypocrisy is depressing but not surprising. It could also be argued, )I hate the argument but it is true) that he has to oppose any and all unionization efforts because as a publicly traded company they are required to look out for the interests of their shareholders. Which comes back to the same place ultimately. And I have no sympathy for him regardless of his excuse.
- cool_dude85 4y ago
  >It could also be argued, )I hate the argument but it is true) that he has to oppose any and all unionization efforts because as a publicly traded company they are required to look out for the interests of their shareholders. Anything could be argued, but this argument is not true. Plenty of publicly traded companies have unionized workforces and do not face shareholder lawsuits for it. Can you find an example of a publicly traded company losing a shareholder lawsuit for not running underhanded and illegal union-busting tactics?
  - hellotomyrars 4y ago
    How many publicly traded companies had their workforce unionize without protest in the last 30 years or maybe longer? The model also helps make a difference. Starbucks can kill a store to prevent unionization from taking up, but not all business make this a valid method of squashing unionization. To be clear, it is obvious and plain to see that Starbucks and other corporations view their workforce unionizing as a bad thing for them. The reason they are that is because they believe, reasonably or otherwise, that it will impact their bottom line. The money is what the care about. It is the only thing they care about. Their natural incentive structure of being a publicly traded company is specifically about the pursuit of the almighty dollar. I work for a non-profit and when unionization occurred there was no pushback about it. My industry is also not traditional in so far as our funding is almost exclusively from federal and state health agencies. But the increase in wages and quality of life for the members was measurable, and the demand for home health care only continues to rise as the population ages, as well as social/economics factors around the expectation and realities of family members taking care of family members as they age.

gregors 4y ago

I make it a point to try visit the unionized store in my area. I'd love to see a comparison of pay/benefits of a typical US Starbucks vs the ones I see in say Munich.

peanuty1 4y ago
I make it a point to try to avoid the unionized stores.

supernova87a 4y ago

Can news articles/reporters ever quote the actual original court ruling that they use to source their stories? I find it amazingly rare that journalists feel that they should show people where they get the key finding of their story, and rather lazily present their story as if they were the controlling authority and only source of information. Given how rich the original information is to link to (like, a 200 page PDF ruling), this is a bit of journalistic travesty to leave it out. Compared to how much hearsay they seem to accept as a source in day to day stories, yet go to lengths to name the person's name. And "For more information on this breaking issue, go to KABC.com!" Yeah, thanks a lot for that in-depth reporting! Does anyone know where to find the PDF of this one?

gnicholas 4y ago
Looks like it's here, linked from the NLRB website: https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45839c9e8e https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45839c9e8e
clircle 4y ago
Just another thing that the media does to lower its own reputation.
odensc 4y ago
Agree with your take, but in this case it was pretty easy to find the ruling on Google. Here's the case page [0] and the PDF [1]: [0]: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/03-CA-285671 https://www.nlrb.gov/case/03-CA-285671 [1]: https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45839c9e8e https://apps.nlrb.gov/link/document.aspx/09031d45839c9e8e (file download warning)
spacephysics 4y ago
Your first mistake was considering them journalists. Many who create click bait drool are like WIX “developers” calling themselves custom frontend engineers. Even a junior journalist would do something as simple as quote the actual case. Time and time again I see these articles and even basic things are factually incorrect. Even today I think there was a HN post about salesforce layoffs, quoted at 10k when it was 8k, and that wave happened in January when it was written as if there’s another wave coming.

theGnuMe 4y ago

I'm surprised we don't have a unionization app. With the technology we have today we should be able to do zero trust organizing. There should be a way to square the app with the NRLB so that some protections can get established before a hostile employer acts.

advisedwang 4y ago
The core of unionizing is getting the word out that unionizing is possible, beneficial and worth the risk. There are some places that tech can help, but largely it's a human-interaction problem. As an example, consider how to let someone know you're even considering unionizing. An app isn't able to find out who the people you need to reach out to are - that's work you'd have to do either way. It could automatically send a text or email when you've done that, but both of those are far inferior to just talking to the person. First of all nobody likes automatic messages and they're easy to ignore. Secondly it loses the ability to sound someone out slowly, which allows you to avoid dropping the U word and potentially tipping off management until you know the person. If its anonymous, the person is likely to ignore a message. Finally and most importantly, just info dumping union benefits comes across as a sales pitch and is very ineffective; it's better to have a conversation that gets to your co-workers needs at work and from there games out whether a union would help them.
evanb 4y ago
https://unitworkers.com/ https://unitworkers.com/

Alupis 4y ago

Honestly curious - is there any available data that demonstrates Unions are a net-benefit in modern times? Many of us have fond thoughts regarding Unions and the struggles they went through decades ago to achieve sane, safe, rewarding working conditions. What is left to fight for? In the past couple years, we have had story after story of Unions abusing power and harming companies and the public in the process. Is there good-doing I'm missing? Take Starbucks for example - already known for higher-than-average wages, college tuition sponsorship programs, management tracks and more - what is left to fight for? It's still nearly zero-skilled labor at the end of the day.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago
At minimum, you can argue it's game theoretical insurance. If Starbucks is so magnanimous towards their employees today, they may not be that way tomorrow. Corporate advocates for itself. Unions advocate for the employees. Ideally, they strike a balance so that nobody's satisfied and the best compromise is reached. Discarding unions leaves the door open for an imbalance of corporate power. (And, since corporations tend toward monopoly these days, that's a lot of corporate power.)
VHRanger 4y ago
There sure is! Here's a recent review: https://www.nber.org/papers/w29522 https://www.nber.org/papers/w29522 It's a pretty consistent finding among labor economics researchers that firms have monopsony power over workers. > What's left to fight for? The issue isnt whether they're well paid according to your subjective criteria. It's the ratio between how much the worker is paid and how much they produce for the firm. I talk about the "bargaining power ratio" concept here[1], but the microeconomics 201 concept is the ratio between marginal product of labor and pay can be thought of as the bargaining power ratio. If across the board workers have a low ratio, then they have a systematically low bargaining power, and unions would improve that. [1] https://www.singlelunch.com/2022/02/21/why-you-should-not-hire-a-real-estate-agent/ https://www.singlelunch.com/2022/02/21/why-you-should-not-hi...
- Alupis 4y ago

prasadjoglekar 4y ago

Judge is a strong word here. This was an NLRB admin judge/bureaucrat which means this whole thing will be appealed to a real judicial branch court and tried.

olliej 4y ago

I like how the article states that "In recent months [Starbucks] has raised pay and made other changes in response to the discontent." No. It has made those changes in response to union activity. No changes happened until it became apparent the unionization was actually happening.

stefap2 4y ago

Problem is that people even take these jobs seriously. Starbucks job was something to do part-time for a couple of years while you are in school. Why would you spent time unionizing for that? It's never going to pay enough to live on.

user3939382 4y ago
Tell that to people counting on their job there to feed their kids, that it’s their fault they have the wrong job.