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- cross-posted to:
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Starbucks violated federal labor law when it increased wages and offered new perks and benefits only to non-union employees, a National Labor Relations Board judge found Thursday.
The decision is the latest in a series of NLRB rulings finding that Starbucks has violated labor law in its efforts to stop unions from forming in its coffee shops.
“The issue at the heart of this case is whether, under current Board law, [Starbucks] was entitled to explicitly reward employees,” for not participating in union activity, “while falsely telling its workers that the federal labor law forced it to take this action,” wrote administrative law judge Mara-Louise Anzalone. “It was not.”
Man, I remember a time when Starbucks gave decent pay, great benefits, and employee stock to even part time employees.
How things change when you can only see short term quarterly profits.
I worked at Starbucks back in like 04-06 or something like that and it was a great job for what it was at the time. The pace was reasonable, the hours were genuinely flexible, the pay was decent, and the benefits were actual. I was in the highest volume store in the metro area I was living in and I loved working there. It was busy, but the line kept it reasonable, we’d mark drinks ahead of time on cups, and half the time by the time people got to the counter we’d have their drink ready.
After unemployment ran out from COVID I went back for about a year, and it was a completely different beast. Where one line used to create a bottleneck at the register and allow us plenty of time to mark and make drinks, we now had to deal with the drive-thru and mobile ordering all at the same time, which shifts the bottle neck to drink preparation by a wide margin. Working at Starbucks now is essentially standing in the middle of the narrow point of a labor funnel. They’ve also added a lot more tasks and spread them out all over the place, so the footwork is way more than it used to be. Floor mat coverage also tends to be insufficient because of this, and there isn’t really time to slow down to a reasonable pace. Doesn’t help when you’re scheduled until 15 minutes before the hour in order to avoid having to give you another break.
Pay is basically what it was the last time I worked there plus a couple of dollars. Benefits and stock options are still left dangling as bait, but management seems to try to ensure that as few employees as possible actually get enough hours to qualify. Where previously corporate, in my experience anyway, supported positive managers who had their crews backs, they now seem to love slimy corporate boot-lickers who will rake back every bit of benefit and extract as much labor as possible.
With the drive-thru model it’s hardly surprising to see it getting worse, but it is disappointing. What was once a boon to the working class has become just another exploitative company. Not only that, but an exploitative company that’s taken their market share and has moved on to cost cutting and labor squeezing. Replacing nice little local cafes first with a polished corporate cafe and slowly turning it into an expensive McDonald’s.
I do hope the nice little cafes see the opportunity to capitalize on selling a better product and treating their employees better and take back a bit of that market share.
I didn’t even know they stopped doing those things until this made the news, and it’s just another reason why I hate the dystopia that we’re currently trapped in.