81–90 of 303 posts
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The low-level retailer worker can change jobs much easier than a store can be opened/closed.
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.
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.
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.
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> I think this is a clear cut case of retaliation and the SCOTUS is wrong in this case. Where do you draw the line between "retaliation" and "refusing a bad deal"? If spotify wants to hike its monthly price by $10 and I cancel, is that "retaliating" or just me not liking the new deal?
That's a bad comparison because the power dynamics are wildly different. To quote another commenter: > Employees can’t 1/35,000th quit the way Starbucks can close 1/35,000th of its locations. https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=34997971
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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 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 hav…
The low-level retailer worker can change jobs much easier than a store can be opened/closed.
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.
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An employee whose store closes goes from $n income to 0, while Starbucks goes from $x to (34999/35000)x.
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 muc…
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…
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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.
The courts can't compel a company to hire someone out of the blue, but they can compel a company to not-fire someone in retaliation for unionization efforts. Similarly, if the court so desired, they couldn't compel someone to start a business out of the blue, but they could definitely compel a company to not shut down an operating business in retaliation for unionization efforts. This court? Never happen. But this is…
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
1) The right to unionize without intimidation
2) Commitment to non-discrimination based on legal classes
3) Discipline happens on the clock and is free from harassment and abuse
4) Right to self-defense, covid safety, disaster/emergency pay raises, and zero tolerance for harassment
5) All firings should have a Just Cause
6) Allow workers to pick up shifts in non-union stores, transfer to them, etc.
7) Reimbursement for necessary equipment, limits on dress code
8) Full time for 32+ hours, benefits for 20 hours
9) New work cannot be added to job descriptions without negotiation
10) Schedule guarantees
11) Seniority will be used to prevent unfair working conditions
12) Workers in a store will have a committee to oversee working conditions in their store
13) No reduction in wages or benefits without negotiation
14) Unions have a place set up in the break room for union comms
15) The right to wear union pins/swag
Absolutely zero of these are "petulant", and we can argue about whether any of them are "counterproductive", but they all seem absolutely baseline reasonable to me.
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…
The real point of Starbucks doing this isn’t to avoid having to cut into their profit margins a bit in that location but to suppress unionization in their other locations.
They have to shut it down early and often, or they’ll actually have to go to the table with a Union and that idea makes them crap their pants.
They would rather lose all profit from that location and send the message that unionization will get you fired.