7 ms·

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 te

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.)

brightball 4y ago
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.
uoaei 4y ago
None of your assumptions matter. Only the union contract and its contents matter. Do you have the text of the contract?
- justin66 4y ago
  > Only the union contract and its contents matter. 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.
hvs 4y ago
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.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  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). https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/court-report-union-attempt-to-block-unilateral-pay-raise-rejected.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...
nemo44x 4y ago
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.
- klyrs 4y ago
  > Or if there's nothing in the contract then management can probably keep them for themselves or donate them. That's a violation of federal labor law. https://www.7shifts.com/blog/restaurant-tip-pooling-laws/ https://www.7shifts.com/blog/restaurant-tip-pooling-laws/
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- rcme 4y ago
  Employers cannot keep tips, directly or indirectly. Using tips as a bargaining chip for unions is indirectly keeping the tip.
  - mc32 4y ago
    But I think they can bar tips from their business.
    - rcme 4y ago
      Employers can’t discriminate based on union activity either.
wahnfrieden 4y ago
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
- chrisbolt 4y ago
  > 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.
  - Arrath 4y ago
    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.
- justin66 4y ago
  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.”
hiddencost 4y ago
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.
- vuln 4y ago
  > 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!
  - ahepp 4y ago
    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?
    - fallingknife 4y ago
      The burden of proof lies on the person who claims that literally any statement that contradicts his argument is malicious propaganda.
pavon 4y ago
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.
frgtpsswrdlame 4y ago
You can read about what is and isn't allowed here: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/discriminating-against-employees-because-of-their-union https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/di... You might also be interested in reading about why the NLRB was formed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Board 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.
- tutuca 4y ago
  Like people being hang for climing labor rights or doors being closed leading to fires killing a lot of working women. That kind of violence...
  - splistud 4y ago
    [dead]
- whitemary 4y ago
  ...and the NLRB ensures that the violence continues only in one direction; from the ruling class against the working class.
jayd16 4y ago
Is there any evidence of any attempt to get this approved and the union pushed back? Why speculate that its the union's doing?
mrgoldenbrown 4y ago
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.

brightball 4y ago

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.

uoaei 4y ago

None of your assumptions matter. Only the union contract and its contents matter. Do you have the text of the contract?

justin66 4y ago
> Only the union contract and its contents matter. 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.

hvs 4y ago

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.

sokoloff 4y ago
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). https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/court-report-union-attempt-to-block-unilateral-pay-raise-rejected.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...

nemo44x 4y ago

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.

klyrs 4y ago
> Or if there's nothing in the contract then management can probably keep them for themselves or donate them. That's a violation of federal labor law. https://www.7shifts.com/blog/restaurant-tip-pooling-laws/ https://www.7shifts.com/blog/restaurant-tip-pooling-laws/
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
rcme 4y ago
Employers cannot keep tips, directly or indirectly. Using tips as a bargaining chip for unions is indirectly keeping the tip.
- mc32 4y ago
  But I think they can bar tips from their business.
  - rcme 4y ago
    Employers can’t discriminate based on union activity either.

wahnfrieden 4y ago

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

chrisbolt 4y ago
> 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.
- Arrath 4y ago
  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.
justin66 4y ago
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.”

hiddencost 4y ago

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.

vuln 4y ago
> 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!
- ahepp 4y ago
  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?
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    The burden of proof lies on the person who claims that literally any statement that contradicts his argument is malicious propaganda.

pavon 4y ago

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.

frgtpsswrdlame 4y ago

You can read about what is and isn't allowed here: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/discriminating-against-employees-because-of-their-union https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/di... You might also be interested in reading about why the NLRB was formed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Board 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.

tutuca 4y ago
Like people being hang for climing labor rights or doors being closed leading to fires killing a lot of working women. That kind of violence...
- splistud 4y ago
  [dead]
whitemary 4y ago
...and the NLRB ensures that the violence continues only in one direction; from the ruling class against the working class.

jayd16 4y ago

Is there any evidence of any attempt to get this approved and the union pushed back? Why speculate that its the union's doing?

mrgoldenbrown 4y ago

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.