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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

#211

Post by GaryNumanVevo »

Alupis wrote: post #203
VHRanger wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There sure is! Here's a recent review: 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…

I don't know how we can be confident a Union will just solve the problems you point out. I'm also not sure we can be confident that most agree these are problems at all - if you are low-skilled or no-skilled, then it does not matter how much value you bring to a company, you are too easily replaced. The solution isn't to fleece the company, but improve the average person's ability to obtain valuable skills, no? Addit…

You keep repeating this old and worn out talking point with no evidence to support it:

> Additionally, Union shops are notoriously poorly run, poorly organized and inefficient. The Union does things to benefit the Union, not the workers, business or public. How do we keep that in check?

Is this just an elaborate sealioning attempt?

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

#212

Post by mplewis »

xur17 wrote: post #196
cool_dude85 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Don't sign a contract that's unreasonable and makes your busine…

> Don't sign a contract that's unreasonable and makes your business unprofitable. That's what the company is supposed to do. But if they don't sign a contract, at some point they don't have labor, right? Which means they have to shut down..

If a business can't come to a basic working agreement with its workers, then of course it has to shut down.

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

#213

Post by slackdog »

nemo44x wrote: post #134
roody15 wrote: post #69

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.

[flagged]

> They'll continue to turn up the dial on all the race/gender/sex preference things as they have since Occupy.

Exactly, they want the focus to be on divides within the working class and away from the labor/capital class divide. This is why corporate DEI messaging is frequently very accusatory and divisive; the point is to make workers feel uncomfortable among themselves, and therefore, less likely to organize. It's designed to make workers walk on eggshells around each other.

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

#214

Post by chasd00 »

notch898a wrote: post #163
lazyasciiart wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

pretty soon you need a couple helpers. Then a couple more. Then they form their own union and you're back to square one.

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

#215

Post by slackdog »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #211
Alupis wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how we can be confident a Union will just solve the problems you point out. I'm also not sure we can be confident that most agree these are problems at all - if you are low-skilled or no-skilled, then it does not matter how much value you bring to a company, you are too easily replaced. The solution isn't to fleece the company, but improve the average person's ability to obtain valuable skills, no? Addit…

You keep repeating this old and worn out talking point with no evidence to support it: > Additionally, Union shops are notoriously poorly run, poorly organized and inefficient. The Union does things to benefit the Union, not the workers, business or public. How do we keep that in check? Is this just an elaborate sealioning attempt?

[flagged]

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

#216

Post by Alupis »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #211
Alupis wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how we can be confident a Union will just solve the problems you point out. I'm also not sure we can be confident that most agree these are problems at all - if you are low-skilled or no-skilled, then it does not matter how much value you bring to a company, you are too easily replaced. The solution isn't to fleece the company, but improve the average person's ability to obtain valuable skills, no? Addit…

You keep repeating this old and worn out talking point with no evidence to support it: > Additionally, Union shops are notoriously poorly run, poorly organized and inefficient. The Union does things to benefit the Union, not the workers, business or public. How do we keep that in check? Is this just an elaborate sealioning attempt?

I have personal experience with three unions in my area. All of which fit my description very accurately.

> You keep repeating this old and worn out talking point

There has been zero evidence produced that counters this assertion. I asked for evidence, and received complaints that cannot be addressed by unions and links to pro-union think tanks that unsurprisingly argue unions are a net-positive force.

A Union isn't some magical thing that solves all problems. Ultimately it's an organization that puts itself above all other organizations, which includes the businesses they work with and even their own Union Members.

Your local grocery store Union is probably actively engaged in forcing-out young people unless they fork over a portion of their scrawny wages to the Union for nothing in return.

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

#218

Post by VHRanger »

Alupis wrote: post #203
VHRanger wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There sure is! Here's a recent review: 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…

I don't know how we can be confident a Union will just solve the problems you point out. I'm also not sure we can be confident that most agree these are problems at all - if you are low-skilled or no-skilled, then it does not matter how much value you bring to a company, you are too easily replaced. The solution isn't to fleece the company, but improve the average person's ability to obtain valuable skills, no? Addit…

> I don't know how we can be confident a Union will just solve the problems you point out.

Unions increase worker bargaining power. If worker bargaining power is low, it solves that

> if you are low-skilled or no-skilled, then it does not matter how much value you bring to a company

The amount of skill has nothing to do with it. Only your marginal product of labor and the ratio of your pay to it

> you are too easily replaced

That would affect bargaining power, correct

> The solution isn't to fleece the company, but improve the average person's ability to obtain valuable skills, no?

Not particularly.

For instance, low skilled job are also easily replaceable. Walmart is hiring just as well as Starbucks or Target.

So why is the balance struck at this wage point? The issue is that there are relatively few firms offering a ton of the low skilled jobs. The firms are forming an effective union (oligopsony for the technical) which suppresses wages.

> Union shops are notoriously poorly run, poorly organized and inefficient.

[Citation needed]

Public sector unions (eg. police unions, teachers unions) tend to be terrible, because the government doesn't face profitability pressures like companies do.

Some private sector unions have been inefficient (eg. Detroit auto workers in the 1990s) but that's also often because the sector itself is immune to competition (chicken tax for auto workers).

Other private sector unions for instance are much better at ensuring labor norms are respected.

All in all it's hard to go against David Card's (author in NBER review paper above) opinion on the matter of labor economics

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

#220

Post by bcrosby95 »

lapcat wrote: post #161
JKCalhoun wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).…

Yeah, all ideals any large company claims to have are shed for the sake of China's market. That should be evidence enough that it's just a method to maximize their profits.
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