Starbucks to give employees new benefits, but not at unionized locations

[GregTheGreat657]

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/03/1095909869/starbucks-union-ceo-howard-schultz-workers-united-labor-benefits

A month after his return to Starbucks as interim CEO, Howard Schultz has announced new benefits, including expanded training, improved sick leave and credit card tipping for some 240,000 Starbucks employees at more than 8,800 stores across the country — but not for those that are unionizing.

"We do not have the same freedom to make these improvements at locations that have a union or where union organizing is underway," Schultz said on a conference call with shareholders on Tuesday.

Starbucks said all employees, including those at stores that are unionizing, would receive the wage hikes that were first announced last October. On August 1, employees will get either a 3% raise or $15 dollars hour, whichever is higher, and tenured hourly employers will get even bigger raises.

While this is a good business decision, it is a major HP move

[GP270watch]

I had a feeling something like this would happen.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Smarter than Delta. But not one smidgen less reprehensible.

[Agafin]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

[Person Man]

They should be canceled.

[Mr. Reactionary]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

This isnt capitalisms fault, its the federal laws governing unions fault. At the non union stores, there is no exclusive bargaining unit so the employer can freely give raises and benefit increases at will. In unionized stores any increase in wages or benefits must be negotiated with the exclusive bargaining unit during predetermined bargaining confrences before they can take effect so that the greedy union rep can collect a check. Its considered a federal unfair labor practice to offer better pay/benefits outside of the exclusive bargaining agent. And the CBAs frequently block merit raises because they think union tenure should be the priority factor in raises.

This decision by starbucks is required by federal labor law.

[Del Tachi]

People criticizing Starbucks here don't know what unions are or how they work, as the poster above explained.   

[Cassandra]

Clever. We'll see how the new locals react. Hopefully they move quickly.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

This isnt capitalisms fault, its the federal laws governing unions fault. At the non union stores, there is no exclusive bargaining unit so the employer can freely give raises and benefit increases at will. In unionized stores any increase in wages or benefits must be negotiated with the exclusive bargaining unit during predetermined bargaining confrences before they can take effect so that the greedy union rep can collect a check. Its considered a federal unfair labor practice to offer better pay/benefits outside of the exclusive bargaining agent. And the CBAs frequently block merit raises because they think union tenure should be the priority factor in raises.

This decision by starbucks is required by federal labor law.

Bovine feces. (And stock anti-union propaganda.)

There's nothing prevent Starbucks corporate from extending the same offer to union shops, where it would be readily accepted. (Except for the fact that very transparently it's a technically legal anti-union ploy. Which is only being done because Starbucks corporate is very threatened at the possibility of not being free to abuse its employees at its whim in the future.)

This is the abusive ex making a big production out of how nice he's treating his new girlfriend. Starbucks will go back to abusing its non-union employees the moment everyone stops paying attention. And they're hoping they'll have some former union employees they can abuse too.

[Mr. Reactionary]

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/nlrb-puts-employers-no-win-situation-re-wage-increases

[Former President tack50]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

This isnt capitalisms fault, its the federal laws governing unions fault. At the non union stores, there is no exclusive bargaining unit so the employer can freely give raises and benefit increases at will. In unionized stores any increase in wages or benefits must be negotiated with the exclusive bargaining unit during predetermined bargaining confrences before they can take effect so that the greedy union rep can collect a check. Its considered a federal unfair labor practice to offer better pay/benefits outside of the exclusive bargaining agent. And the CBAs frequently block merit raises because they think union tenure should be the priority factor in raises.

This decision by starbucks is required by federal labor law.

Couldn't the collective bargaining agreement with Starbucks just say something along the lines of "Any general payrise or new benefits decision that improves the conditions of a majority of the Starbucks workforce nationwide must also automatically apply to this store" or something along those lines?

In any case if I was in a unionized store I would be instantly lobbying to get those benefits too

[Badger]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

This. Not a violation of labor laws?

[Santander]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

We live in a world where there is child labor, de facto slavery, fraud, unmitigated industrial pollution, and many other terrible things, not to mention what happened in the past. Yet Starbucks giving workers new benefits is a new low?

[Schiff for Senate]

Good move. And not an HP move, either - it's just them going hardball.

[lfromnj]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

We live in a world where there is child labor, de facto slavery, fraud, unmitigated industrial pollution, and many other terrible things, not to mention what happened in the past. Yet Starbucks giving workers new benefits is a new low?

No somehow if unionized workers get more thats a good thing, but if non unionized workers get more thats terrible. Its like people are so attached to just the idea of a union.

[Mr. Reactionary]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

We live in a world where there is child labor, de facto slavery, fraud, unmitigated industrial pollution, and many other terrible things, not to mention what happened in the past. Yet Starbucks giving workers new benefits is a new low?

No somehow if unionized workers get more thats a good thing, but if non unionized workers get more thats terrible. Its like people are so attached to just the idea of a union.

And 88% of workers are non union, so unions =/= workers anymore.

[Badger]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

We live in a world where there is child labor, de facto slavery, fraud, unmitigated industrial pollution, and many other terrible things, not to mention what happened in the past. Yet Starbucks giving workers new benefits is a new low?

No somehow if unionized workers get more thats a good thing, but if non unionized workers get more thats terrible. Its like people are so attached to just the idea of a union.

And 88% of workers are non union, so unions =/= workers anymore.

Which is a bad thing because workers have been increasingly s*** on the last several decades in no small part to the decrease of unionization.

The real concern is wage slaves might get uppity and demand an extra dollar an hour and half-assed insurance for their kids, and God forbid maybe you can start voting Democratic like most union people do.

[dead0man]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

We live in a world where there is child labor, de facto slavery, fraud, unmitigated industrial pollution, and many other terrible things, not to mention what happened in the past. Yet Starbucks giving workers new benefits is a new low?

No somehow if unionized workers get more thats a good thing, but if non unionized workers get more thats terrible. Its like people are so attached to just the idea of a union.

And 88% of workers are non union, so unions =/= workers anymore.

Which is a bad thing because workers have been increasingly s*** on the last several decades in no small part to the decrease of unionization.

what is the evidence for this?  Wages have more than kept up with inflation in your time frame, yet we work fewer hours.  Have the jobs that have stayed union gotten SOOO much better than non-union jobs?  Seems to me they have not with as much as people bitch about how poor teachers are and how much cops suck.

Yeah, it sucks that dumb assholes in rust belt don't have over paid jobs to do poorly anymore, but it's at least partly their own stupid fault.  If one is getting paid $16/hr in 1979 to put cars together, why did they do such a horrible job at it?  You'd think you would want to keep that job...oh, that's right, it was a union job and like cops and teachers they couldn't get fired for poor performance.  Well, they might not have been able to get fired for it, but the factory sure as sh**t can get shut down if nobody buys the sh**tty cars....which is exactly what happened over and over.  Sure, some of the blame goes to non-union engineers that designed sh**tty cars and those greedy exec fat cats skimming off the top.  But no blame for the consumer who refused to buy union made garbage no matter how many Made in America labels the racist nationalists put on the product or advertise for on TV (though I will give the American consumer some sh**t for always wanting bigger and softer cars.  Idiots.).  It's kind of telling that cars made in American factories are nearly as good as cars made in Japanese factories now that cars are made by robots and non-union workers.

[lfromnj]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

We live in a world where there is child labor, de facto slavery, fraud, unmitigated industrial pollution, and many other terrible things, not to mention what happened in the past. Yet Starbucks giving workers new benefits is a new low?

No somehow if unionized workers get more thats a good thing, but if non unionized workers get more thats terrible. Its like people are so attached to just the idea of a union.

And 88% of workers are non union, so unions =/= workers anymore.

Which is a bad thing because workers have been increasingly s*** on the last several decades in no small part to the decrease of unionization.

The real concern is wage slaves might get uppity and demand an extra dollar an hour and half-assed insurance for their kids, and God forbid maybe you can start voting Democratic like most union people do.

Well the non union workers got most of that without joining a union? Not sure what your issue is. If the union somehow negotiated this for its workers you would be ecstatic because joining a union makes someone super special according to lefties.

[PSOL]

Time for the competition to begin. The workers can only win further.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Unions helped to grow the middle class. This is an example of the ruling class trying to further divide the wealth divide between the rich and poor. Those who are unionized have every right to get the same benefits as non-unionized stores.

[Devout Centrist]

No somehow if unionized workers get more thats a good thing, but if non unionized workers get more thats terrible. Its like people are so attached to just the idea of a union.

The issue here is that the company is punishing members for unionizing - they won't receive a pay increase because they are supposed to be part of a union contract, even though the union has not existed long enough to negotiate one. It's a clear scare tactic meant to discourage other locations from unionizing.

Fortunately, Howard Schultz is an utter loser and this sort of dog sweat is unlikely to sway anyone.

[lfromnj]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

We live in a world where there is child labor, de facto slavery, fraud, unmitigated industrial pollution, and many other terrible things, not to mention what happened in the past. Yet Starbucks giving workers new benefits is a new low?

No somehow if unionized workers get more thats a good thing, but if non unionized workers get more thats terrible. Its like people are so attached to just the idea of a union.

The issue here is that the company is punishing members for unionizing - they won't receive a pay increase because they are supposed to be part of a union contract, even though the union has not existed long enough to negotiate one. It's a clear scare tactic meant to discourage other locations from unionizing.

Fortunately, Howard Schultz is an utter loser and this sort of dog sweat is unlikely to sway anyone.

No they are rewarding members for not unionizing. Why is it only acceptable to have union workers "earn more" Why can't non union workers earn more?

[GP270watch]

 Nearly every right and benefit that workers have in the United States is because of unions and the labor movement. The 8 hour work day, the 40 hour work week, 5 day work week and weekends off are all things achieved by the organized labor movement. There are also many other benefits, people really should look into what unions have done for you, if you're an employee.

[Devout Centrist]

This is a new low for capitalism. Absolutely scummy.

We live in a world where there is child labor, de facto slavery, fraud, unmitigated industrial pollution, and many other terrible things, not to mention what happened in the past. Yet Starbucks giving workers new benefits is a new low?

No somehow if unionized workers get more thats a good thing, but if non unionized workers get more thats terrible. Its like people are so attached to just the idea of a union.

The issue here is that the company is punishing members for unionizing - they won't receive a pay increase because they are supposed to be part of a union contract, even though the union has not existed long enough to negotiate one. It's a clear scare tactic meant to discourage other locations from unionizing.

Fortunately, Howard Schultz is an utter loser and this sort of dog sweat is unlikely to sway anyone.

No they are rewarding members for not unionizing. Why is it only acceptable to have union workers "earn more" Why can't non union workers earn more?

Lol

I'm fine with the company giving workers a base pay raise (though 5% for members who have worked there for 2+ years is rather meager), but this is clearly meant to head off mass unionization. Fifty locations have already unionized and the company risks this movement achieving critical mass if they don't act.