NEWS: Look for the Union Latte

CULTURE: Look for the Union Latte

The last thing Starbucks probably wants is to be compared with Wal-Mart. The coffee chain, which offers mass market, watered-down alterna-culture alongside its bitter roasts, likes to present itself as the nice guy mega-corporation. So what happens when Starbucks’ easy listening version of social responsibility is accused of bad labor practices? Steam milk and litigation, it seems.

Former Starbucks barista Daniel Gross has brought the coffee giant to court with the help of the IWW, a progressive labor group with roots in the industrial revolution. Gross contends that his association with the Wobblies got him fired from Starbucks last year. He’s fought with Starbucks since then, and this week brought the fight to the Federal National Labor Relations Board.

Starbucks call their employees partners and offer health benefits. However, Gross and his IWW allies argue that the offer is deceptive, as many Starbucks employees work part time and are therefore not eligible for benefits; Gross says only 42 percent of partners
qualify for benefits.

The company boasts about its health care plan but its own data reveal that it insures a lower percentage of employees than Wal-Mart. Baristas are excluded from care by a combination of a work hours qualification threshold and unaffordable out-of-pocket expenses.

Starbucks is at the forefront of what’s called cause branding, a sort of weird marriage of liberal consumer guilt and public relations finessing, as noted in a 2005 Boston Globe article.

I love that “warm feeling” quote. Despite the guilt abatement offered to its customers, there were some questions over whether the charitable effort was effective, or even really charitable.

Gross’ court case is ongoing, and it’s unlikely to stop anyone from enjoying a Macchiato any time soon. If raising their coffee prices didn’t hurt them, this probably won’t either.

Seeing as the industrial revolution took place in the 1700s, and the IWW has only been around since 1905, it would appear this ...

... is a miscalculation.

Bullshit Alarm

The article says that 42% of Starbucks employees are COVERED by their health insurance plan. That doesn't mean only 42% qualify, it simply means 42% of their employees have insurance through them. The spokesperson for Starbucks explains this by saying that a large % of Starbucks employees have health insurance from other sources, such as a spouse or parents. They claim 91% of Starbucks employees have insurance from some source.

Makes sense to me; you see a lot more young people working at Starbucks as opposed to Wal-Mart.

im bitter.. and stabucks makes me want to kill myself after slaving myself there for 3 years

but seriously a lot of this has to do with the manager.. ive had managers that fixed it so that i would only be able to work 15 hrs a week. making it impossible for me to get the health benefits i needed..

As much as I loathe Starbucks with the fury of a thousand white hot suns, I have also always heard that they treat their employees well. I will have to stick to loathing them for their crappy, generic coffee served in a crappy, generic corporate atmosphere.

More propaganda. It would be really, really nice to hear from someone who actually checked to make sure that what they were repeating wasn't slanted with the intention of coopting people into supporting a position without understanding it.

Of course, the fellow alleges he was fired for his association with a radical trade union, so maybe that's the issue at hand?

I know ths isn't the point of the article, but it irritates the crap out of me that swill Starbucks passes off as a macchiato has become the most commonly accepted.

A Starbucks Macchiato is not the same as a macchiato ordered from a real coffee bar.

I'm skeptical as to the slant that this article takes, but even that considered, it doesn't sound THAT bad. If you're looking for a career, you probably don't want to stay at Starbucks. Duh.

I make no illusions about being a Starbot, so feel free to take my comments with a grain of salt.

- Starbucks was the first corporation to offer health benefits to part time employees. If you work 20 hours a week or more you qualify for benefits. The health plan might not be the most generous in history, but if you plan on working 20 hours a week, good luck finding a health plan anywhere else. I have heard that on a store level some managers will intentionally suppress part time hours to disqualify staff, but the company also has a crapload of snitch lines. Do the corporation a favour and weed out the bad managers.

- The company does just a couple more charitable/corporate responsibility things than $2 out of each pound of Sumatran sold. How about the tens of thousands of dollars invested in growing communities where coffee is produced (and that's for things like schools and drinking water systems, and not just coffee farms). How about the $5 million pledged (about $2 million so far provided) to a Hurricane Katrina relief fund? How about the fact that the company will match any donation made by anyone in its employ, up to $2000? How about paying more than 1.5 times the commodity price on coffee from farmers to give them incentive to improve their own conditions?

- If Starbucks is such a horrible place to work, I doubt that it would've made Forbes' list of top 50 corporations to work for. Beyond the health benefits thing, there's stuff like tuition reimbursement programs, and a confidential support line (of which I've availed myself on occasion), as well as operations procedures that are designed to look out for the employee.

- It's partly their own fault for lazy beverage nomenclature, but there is a difference between an espresso macchiatto and a latte macchiatto. Incidentally, when a Tim Horton's For Lifer (which is a good 90% of Hamilton) comes into my store and orders a double-double, I don't cop an attitude at his inferior coffee tastes. If a Starbucks lover decides to sully your specialty cafe with their presence, why not try being inviting once in a while, and you might end up with a convert or two.

Maybe Starbucks has bought my love with that free pound of coffee a week, and I'm looking at a lot of things through rose coloured glasses. I make no illusions about it being the best coffee in the universe (though don't count on your favourite cafe having that either), or being the most generous corporation, even if when compared to similar retail chains it's doing pretty goddamned alright. I wouldn't put down anyone who hates the place, as long as they've actually thought out the reasons why.

Ummmm, no. The roots of the industrial revolution are in the 18th century. None of the features commonly associated with it, however existed until well into the 19th, and certainly not in the US. Similarly, the roots of the IWW go back well in to the 19th century. To oversimplify, the IWW was a reformation of the Knights of Labor in response to AFL style trade unionism. The KoL was founded in response to post Civil War US industrialism. To say that they are not contemporaneous is exceedingly pedantic.

I still remember going to Seattle in the early 90's, and bringing back a Starbucks coffee mug as a souvenir. A lot of "mom & pop" coffee shops wouldn't exist today if it weren't for what Starbucks did for the industry. And the thing that I most appreciated was the way the made the drinks uniformly. I hated the fact that if I ordered a certain drink at five different shops, I'd get five different drinks.

Taking shots at Corporate America is just way too easy; but then again, it's also well deserved. However, in my opinion, Starbucks is pretty far down the list of deserving targets.

I'm a union worker and i make more than i would if i did the same thing nonunion. i'd like to see more unions in the service sector. A labor union would benefit starbucks workers.

i like starbucks coffee even though i'm blue collar, so i'm supposed to like dunkin donuts coffee haha . but the main thing in this article is that starbucks is mostly part time workers and part timers are never eligible for as many benefits as fulltime employees. i don't know about statistics or what some other posters were saying, but this trick is as old as the hills. tons of companies do this. the teamsters went on strike out here a few years ago because UPS was hiring too many part-timers and downsizing the fulltimers.

i think it's average of 30 hrs per week that qualifies you for health insurance. that's what it was when i worked there anyway, and despite my only ASKING to work 15 hours a week, i never worked less than 35 and neither did anyone else at my store. clearly this varies, but with the turnover in this field, most starbucks stores in LA at least are way understaffed.

No, asshole, I want a large, not a fucking vente.

I went to starbucks once. Once.

It's 20 hours, at least in Canada. I work an average of probably 22-23 hours a week, and I'm pretty much locked in for benefits.

I'm looking forward to the year mark where I can start buying discounted stock. I wish Starbucks would stop abusing me like this.

*whistles as he walks to his independent coffeeshop*

Yeah. I've never worked there, but I was offered a job once. They were very big on the whole "we want you to work enough hours so that you get benifits" deal. They didn't seem like a bad company to work for, though they certainly were still pretty corporate. They didn't want any tattoos or (non ear) piercings visible though, which seemed kinda silly to me.

Personally, there are other places in town I'd rather go to, so I never go to Starbucks, but you could also go to a lot worse.

IWW Starbucks Union

The industrial revolution was in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

You're a tard, sir.