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Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#161

Post by lapcat »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #158
lapcat wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_L...

> 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.

Jobs recruited Tim Cook to Apple, make Cook the COO, and then made Cook his successor.

Moreover, Cook was the main driver for putting all of Apple manufacturing in totalitarian China, which has caused many difficulties for Apple's "progressive" image, because the Chinese government has forced Apple into censoring the App Store and even into censoring the operating systems (removing references to Taiwan, for example). Not to mention the often terrible working conditions in iPhone factories.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#162

Post by lazyasciiart »

waynesonfire wrote: post #81
Retric wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

maybe the union can open a coffee shop then! and hire employees and give them union protection. what a concept.

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.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#163

Post by notch898a »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #162
waynesonfire wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe the union can open a coffee shop then! and hire employees and give them union protection. what a concept.

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.

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.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#164

Post by tristor »

itisit wrote: post #29

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

What about these is petulant and counter-productive? All of these seem like standard union demands (seniority rules) or stronger adherence to what are already legally required (anti-harassment). The only one that stood out to me as being unusual, but not in any way counterproductive or petulant, was a demand that the company support workers who act in self-defense against aggressive customers.

You can search my HN comment history, I'm the furthest thing from pro-union, and nothing in here stood out to me as being inappropriate.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#165

Post by zabzonk »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #155
dontlaugh wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no such thing as a progressive company. They do it for marketing reasons, only after a movement made up of many people taking risks "normalised" a particular form of social progress.

There are companies though with a progressive image that appeals to their progressive customers. Whether Corporate™ are progressive or not, they best beware when they offend their customer base. To that end they are forced to behave progressively — so I don't think there's much of a distinction with regard to whether the company truly is or is not "progressive".

"progressive customers" are not the same as "social media influenced dimwits with more money than sense". or may be they are!

and what the heck do you mean by "progressive"?

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#166

Post by WalterBright »

nerdponx wrote: post #5

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 mon…

Closing the store is an opportunity for the union. They can take over the location and open it as their very own union shop, and pay themselves as they see fit.

People open coffee shops all the time. It isn't that hard.

(Though it is hard to make money running a coffee shop. Source: I know people that do)

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#167

Post by JKCalhoun »

hguant wrote: post #112
MapsSlaps wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their demands: 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)…

...this is an incredibly disingenuous reading of the stated proposal. #4 alone isn't "covid safety", it includes a reinstatement of COVID benefits and pay. "Protecting pay for store closures...and for workers who leave early or are sick" also doesn't really make sense in an _hourly_ work environment.

Are you okay with the other 14 then? I understand how you can find issue with one of their proposals but then Starbucks ought to handily agree with all but the one and offer to negotiate #4.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#168

Post by ryan93 »

waynesonfire wrote: post #81
Retric wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

maybe the union can open a coffee shop then! and hire employees and give them union protection. what a concept.

I support unions no question. Kind of weird though that there is no overlap pretty much between those who can start companies and those who want companies to share the wealth. There are millions of companies and basically none split profit equally.

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#169

Post by twodave »

skee8383 wrote: post #26

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…

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

Re: Starbucks illegally fired US workers over union, judge rules

#170

Post by nerdponx »

WalterBright wrote: post #166
nerdponx wrote: post #5

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 mon…

Closing the store is an opportunity for the union. They can take over the location and open it as their very own union shop, and pay themselves as they see fit. People open coffee shops all the time. It isn't that hard. (Though it is hard to make money running a coffee shop. Source: I know people that do)

I doubt the lease is up. That location will sit vacant for months or years, with nobody able to open a coffee shop there: Starbucks, former Starbucks employees, or otherwise.

It is prime real estate for a coffee shop. Blue Bottle and George Howell already have locations just up the street. But in theory it could be a great opportunity for one of the other established chains in the area, or a new company able to capitalize on the foot traffic generated by the fact that it used to be a very very busy Starbucks.

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