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It's a power imbalance. Starbucks can close one trying-to-unionize location because they have 3 others in a few block radius in some cities, and in doing so ens

It's a power imbalance. Starbucks can close one trying-to-unionize location because they have 3 others in a few block radius in some cities, and in doing so ensure the other 3 stores are too scared to unionize. If all 4 stores in a town unionized, Starbucks can withdraw from the town because they have 16 stores in a neighboring city, so and in doing so intimidate them. There is no equivalent behavior a worker can have.

notch898a 4y ago
The low-level retailer worker can change jobs much easier than a store can be opened/closed.
- Retric 4y ago
  Employees can’t 1/35,000th quit the way Starbucks can close 1/35,000th of its locations. As such closing a few locations is absolutely trivial for Starbucks if it serves some larger purpose.
  - notch898a 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - richbell 4y ago
      > You're telling me it's harder for a worker to change their working time or productivity by 4 seconds a week than to close a store? This seems deliberately obtuse. The point is that employees only have one or two jobs. If they had 35,000 jobs that that they spent 4 seconds a week at each, then yeah losing that 4 seconds (job) wouldn't matter.
    - jfim 4y ago
      An employee whose store closes goes from $n income to 0, while Starbucks goes from $x to (34999/35000)x.
      - notch898a 4y ago
        During the worst recession of the US at one point I was changing shit retail jobs at like 1 a week trivially for the hell of it. To do it now you practically only need a pulse. You don't need to lose income to change jobs, you just don't show up to one and show up to the next. Starbucks would be crushed if they had to close all their stores but the laborer can close up all their labor to a company and change jobs much easier than closing all the stores.
        nerdponx 4y ago
        If it was so universally easy, why aren't more people doing it?
        pnutjam 4y ago
        Because he's full of it. I was unemployed last year. It took me 6 weeks to land an in-demand tech job; mostly because of the layer of interviews. I think it was an average of 3 interviews for each job. I eventually had 6 or 7 similar offers and a couple bad ones. I also cut short several processes because I knew they were a month away from an offer. Meanwhile, my wife tried to land a part time retail job. She got 3 offers, but all had slow an onerous background checks, so none started before I got the offers I was waiting on.
        notch898a 4y ago
        Have you considered your wife was either slow walking it, or didn't have recent wage labor experience( the starbucks employee has recent wage experience, but in your wife case say their only recent experience is stay-at-home mom or something)? I've literally stumbled into labor agencies homeless, unkempt, and hungover and started within hours (while I sit in the chair shotgunning hundreds of applications for other gigs too). You could find felons outside drinking 40s and fighting and they'd be on the job within a day too. But yeah I mean if I wanted to I could tell the wife 'sorry took me 6 weeks to start a shit job' if I wasn't super thrilled about doing starbucks tier shit work all day. If you're talking about say a 6 figure federal contractor job then sure it's gonna take awhile, but that's not really an apt comparison.
    - antisthenes 4y ago
      > You're telling me it's harder for a worker to change their working time or productivity by 4 seconds a week than to close a store? I'm not sure what that bit is about 4 seconds of productivity, but if you are asking whether it's harder for a worker to change jobs than for a franchise to close a location staffed by maybe 4-5 workers, then yes. Yes, absolutely, it is easier for the company and I seriously wonder what combination of events in your life made you think the opposing viewpoint is valid in any way or form? Can the concept of power imbalance be really so hard to grasp?
      - gretch 4y ago
        Not the poster you replied to but when I was a teenager I had summer jobs at Walmart and Kroger and it was super easy to get/leave a job (this was like 2005). And at that time I was a bumbling teenager. Here in the Bay Area I see help wanted signs in pretty much every shop I walk into.
  - waynesonfire 4y ago
    maybe the union can open a coffee shop then! and hire employees and give them union protection. what a concept.
    - Firmwarrior 4y ago
      If anyone's organizing a movement to help do this to force Starbucks' hand, I'll donate a few bucks (Unionize all the stores in an area, and if Starbucks shuts them all down, just open a new coffee shop)
    - lazyasciiart 4y ago
      Perhaps you actually could create some kind of right-of-assumption. If Starbucks wants to close, fine, but the existing employees must be given the right to buy out the lease and base hardware at cost. People would leap at the chance for an insta-coffee-shop in the high traffic locations starbucks abandoned in Seattle.
      - notch898a 4y ago
        It's not uncommon in Washington/Oregon to find a coffee shop that's just like a port-a-potty sized booth and one or two employee-owners. Some of them are quite popular. Probably <30k to startup, anybody with several years work experience could probably max out a bunch of credit cards and do it.
        ticviking 4y ago
        My wife and several of my friends have worked in those. Depending on the area they are insanely competitive, and you need good local industry contacts to get supplies and know the market. But it's absolutely a low cost path to owning your own coffee shop.
        chasd00 4y ago
        pretty soon you need a couple helpers. Then a couple more. Then they form their own union and you're back to square one.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  The behavior of individual low-level retail workers has very very little effect on Starbucks. That's literally the point of unions, and why it is (and should remain) illegal to obstruct them. You argue elsewhere that changing jobs is easier than Starbucks closing all of their stores. The point is that this is one store, not all of them, and Starbucks can absolutely afford to close one or a few. They are betting that labor will back down before store closures start to hurt their business.
  - notch898a 4y ago
    I also argue it's easier than closing/opening a single store. If that is true, it must be true it's easier than closing all the stores. Weird indictment, why wouldn't you attack the stronger and harder to defend of my arguments which was the single store?
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  Actually, it depends: can the low-level retailer afford however long it takes to set up new payroll? Can the low-level retailer commute to a new location, or afford to take the time off to do the job search to begin with? Can they afford the extra overhead if they're working multiple jobs to make ends meet, have dependents, etc?
- mcguire 4y ago
  Yes, and? I'm not seeing what you are trying to say here.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
CobrastanJorji 4y ago
Perhaps you could add a simple check, like "in the event a unionized operating place is closed, unionized employees must be given right of first refusal for any job openings for a similar place of operation within 10 miles at no less than their original pay or the average pay of a similar role at the new facility, whichever is greater."
salawat 4y ago
This is why the Taft-Hartley Act was a stroke of genius and a huge gift to the capital wielding class in that it took Secondary striking off the table for workers/labor. Network effects for me, but none for thee.
- kazen44 4y ago
  what, secondary/solidarity striking is not allowed in the US? I wonder how long this is viable, especially considering the ever increasing inequality in most western societies.
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    It's worse than you think. Quoth Wikipedia: > Among the practices prohibited by the Taft–Hartley act are jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. The amendments also allowed states to enact right-to-work laws banning union shops. Enacted during the early stages of the Cold War, the law required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits with the government. Seems like it should be at least partly unconstitutional on first amendment grounds, but I don't know if it's ever been challenged.
    - salawat 4y ago
      It emerged out of backlash to some particularly roughly timed large profile strikes that happened during WWII, and with the Cold War blooming, and no one knowing if it'd ever go hot, Congress shoved that one through to "ensure the U.S. would never be held hostage by communist rabble rousers again." To be frank, it's a shining example of why every legislation needs a sunset date. One and done legislation is just a tyranny happening in slow motion without active efforts to measure and assure continuing assent to the status quo by the governed.
lordnacho 4y ago
The power imbalance arises from a lack of competition. That needs to be addressed as well.

notch898a 4y ago

The low-level retailer worker can change jobs much easier than a store can be opened/closed.

Retric 4y ago
Employees can’t 1/35,000th quit the way Starbucks can close 1/35,000th of its locations. As such closing a few locations is absolutely trivial for Starbucks if it serves some larger purpose.
- notch898a 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - richbell 4y ago
    > You're telling me it's harder for a worker to change their working time or productivity by 4 seconds a week than to close a store? This seems deliberately obtuse. The point is that employees only have one or two jobs. If they had 35,000 jobs that that they spent 4 seconds a week at each, then yeah losing that 4 seconds (job) wouldn't matter.
  - jfim 4y ago
    An employee whose store closes goes from $n income to 0, while Starbucks goes from $x to (34999/35000)x.
    - notch898a 4y ago
      During the worst recession of the US at one point I was changing shit retail jobs at like 1 a week trivially for the hell of it. To do it now you practically only need a pulse. You don't need to lose income to change jobs, you just don't show up to one and show up to the next. Starbucks would be crushed if they had to close all their stores but the laborer can close up all their labor to a company and change jobs much easier than closing all the stores.
      - nerdponx 4y ago
        If it was so universally easy, why aren't more people doing it?
        pnutjam 4y ago
        Because he's full of it. I was unemployed last year. It took me 6 weeks to land an in-demand tech job; mostly because of the layer of interviews. I think it was an average of 3 interviews for each job. I eventually had 6 or 7 similar offers and a couple bad ones. I also cut short several processes because I knew they were a month away from an offer. Meanwhile, my wife tried to land a part time retail job. She got 3 offers, but all had slow an onerous background checks, so none started before I got the offers I was waiting on.
        notch898a 4y ago
        Have you considered your wife was either slow walking it, or didn't have recent wage labor experience( the starbucks employee has recent wage experience, but in your wife case say their only recent experience is stay-at-home mom or something)? I've literally stumbled into labor agencies homeless, unkempt, and hungover and started within hours (while I sit in the chair shotgunning hundreds of applications for other gigs too). You could find felons outside drinking 40s and fighting and they'd be on the job within a day too. But yeah I mean if I wanted to I could tell the wife 'sorry took me 6 weeks to start a shit job' if I wasn't super thrilled about doing starbucks tier shit work all day. If you're talking about say a 6 figure federal contractor job then sure it's gonna take awhile, but that's not really an apt comparison.
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    > You're telling me it's harder for a worker to change their working time or productivity by 4 seconds a week than to close a store? I'm not sure what that bit is about 4 seconds of productivity, but if you are asking whether it's harder for a worker to change jobs than for a franchise to close a location staffed by maybe 4-5 workers, then yes. Yes, absolutely, it is easier for the company and I seriously wonder what combination of events in your life made you think the opposing viewpoint is valid in any way or form? Can the concept of power imbalance be really so hard to grasp?
    - gretch 4y ago
      Not the poster you replied to but when I was a teenager I had summer jobs at Walmart and Kroger and it was super easy to get/leave a job (this was like 2005). And at that time I was a bumbling teenager. Here in the Bay Area I see help wanted signs in pretty much every shop I walk into.
- waynesonfire 4y ago
  maybe the union can open a coffee shop then! and hire employees and give them union protection. what a concept.
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    If anyone's organizing a movement to help do this to force Starbucks' hand, I'll donate a few bucks (Unionize all the stores in an area, and if Starbucks shuts them all down, just open a new coffee shop)
  - lazyasciiart 4y ago
    Perhaps you actually could create some kind of right-of-assumption. If Starbucks wants to close, fine, but the existing employees must be given the right to buy out the lease and base hardware at cost. People would leap at the chance for an insta-coffee-shop in the high traffic locations starbucks abandoned in Seattle.
    - notch898a 4y ago
      It's not uncommon in Washington/Oregon to find a coffee shop that's just like a port-a-potty sized booth and one or two employee-owners. Some of them are quite popular. Probably <30k to startup, anybody with several years work experience could probably max out a bunch of credit cards and do it.
      - ticviking 4y ago
        My wife and several of my friends have worked in those. Depending on the area they are insanely competitive, and you need good local industry contacts to get supplies and know the market. But it's absolutely a low cost path to owning your own coffee shop.
      - chasd00 4y ago
        pretty soon you need a couple helpers. Then a couple more. Then they form their own union and you're back to square one.
nerdponx 4y ago
The behavior of individual low-level retail workers has very very little effect on Starbucks. That's literally the point of unions, and why it is (and should remain) illegal to obstruct them. You argue elsewhere that changing jobs is easier than Starbucks closing all of their stores. The point is that this is one store, not all of them, and Starbucks can absolutely afford to close one or a few. They are betting that labor will back down before store closures start to hurt their business.
- notch898a 4y ago
  I also argue it's easier than closing/opening a single store. If that is true, it must be true it's easier than closing all the stores. Weird indictment, why wouldn't you attack the stronger and harder to defend of my arguments which was the single store?
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
Actually, it depends: can the low-level retailer afford however long it takes to set up new payroll? Can the low-level retailer commute to a new location, or afford to take the time off to do the job search to begin with? Can they afford the extra overhead if they're working multiple jobs to make ends meet, have dependents, etc?
mcguire 4y ago
Yes, and? I'm not seeing what you are trying to say here.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

CobrastanJorji 4y ago

Perhaps you could add a simple check, like "in the event a unionized operating place is closed, unionized employees must be given right of first refusal for any job openings for a similar place of operation within 10 miles at no less than their original pay or the average pay of a similar role at the new facility, whichever is greater."

salawat 4y ago

This is why the Taft-Hartley Act was a stroke of genius and a huge gift to the capital wielding class in that it took Secondary striking off the table for workers/labor. Network effects for me, but none for thee.

kazen44 4y ago
what, secondary/solidarity striking is not allowed in the US? I wonder how long this is viable, especially considering the ever increasing inequality in most western societies.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  It's worse than you think. Quoth Wikipedia: > Among the practices prohibited by the Taft–Hartley act are jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. The amendments also allowed states to enact right-to-work laws banning union shops. Enacted during the early stages of the Cold War, the law required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits with the government. Seems like it should be at least partly unconstitutional on first amendment grounds, but I don't know if it's ever been challenged.
  - salawat 4y ago
    It emerged out of backlash to some particularly roughly timed large profile strikes that happened during WWII, and with the Cold War blooming, and no one knowing if it'd ever go hot, Congress shoved that one through to "ensure the U.S. would never be held hostage by communist rabble rousers again." To be frank, it's a shining example of why every legislation needs a sunset date. One and done legislation is just a tyranny happening in slow motion without active efforts to measure and assure continuing assent to the status quo by the governed.

lordnacho 4y ago

The power imbalance arises from a lack of competition. That needs to be addressed as well.