Starbucks settles complaint alleging anti-union tactics

The Industrial Workers of the World filed the complaint with the National Labor Relations Board over its efforts at unionizing baristas at three Starbucks stores in Manhattan. Starbucks admitted no wrongdoing, but agreed to offer two workers their jobs back and to pay nearly $2,000 to several employees. (Associated Press)
> Read Starbucks' press release on the settlement

Comments

[imabarrista]

So, we have someone re-hired. Sbux agrees that it follows rules. No one gainsays it.

What was it all about then?

[wsdave]

I now believe in time travel, because the IWW just got slapped into next week! For all of their big talk about how Starbucks broke the law and tried to break the Union, the total damages amounted to less than $2,000 and a couple of whinners got their jobs back (which I suspect they'll loss again soon).

If the IWW actually had a case, they would have happily gone to court to show the world how cool and powerful they are, and how bad Starbucks is. It would have been their defining moment, reempowering not just their members but workers everywhere.

Instead they settle for chump change.

The very definition of committed...

[Boston Starbucks Rebel]

I believe that the best way to destroy is from the inside out! Something festers in the Siren and they have not the wisdom to see it before its even too late.

[wsdave]

Perhaps not. But they DO have the wisdom to grant stock options, which can stem a lot of festering...

[Christopher]

These socialist/communists are bad news. They damage every industry they get in volved in: autos, air travel, steel ...

Unions can only exist via coercion, be it legislative or physical.

Chris
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/

[Adam in Racine WI]

I welcome someone to correct me if my perception is off base, but it seems to me like these labor unions keep trying to weasel their way into Starbucks just to make a name for themselves. I can't recall hearing about any unique labor issues with Starbucks that any large global corporation wouldn't also have...if there are no significant or systemic labor issues, then why would you need a union?

[deusx]

Have you read much about the Wobblies?

“I welcome someone to correct me if my perception is off base, but it seems to me like these labor unions keep trying to weasel their way into Starbucks just to make a name for themselves. I can't recall hearing about any unique labor issues with Starbucks that any large global corporation wouldn't also have...if there were no significant or systemic labor issues, then why would you need a union?”

It is precisely because large global corporations all have significant systematic labor issues that Starbucks is running into trouble.

Fact is no company can become a large global corporation with out exploiting labor. Capitalism is predicated upon the exploitation of label and the bigger a player you are, the more exploitation you will be involved with, by definition. It’s inescapable…

But the single most important reason Starbucks is in trouble is that it went public. Publicly traded corporations have no interest other than in making profits for their shareholders, and that puts them diametrically at odds with human survival. That is because the fastest way to make a buck is to mine resources for all their value. Clear cutting is more profitable in the short term than managing forests, and working humans to death is more profitable than paying humans a wage with which they can sustain themselves.

Which is why Starbucks is on that slippery slope where they find themselves providing a smaller percentage of their workers with healthcare than Wal-Mart.

[deusx]

Blah blah blah "capitalism bad" blah blah blah "Insert grandiose exhaggeration here involving human slavery" blah blah "make certain my Che Guevara tshirt is clean for tomorrow's demonstation...wish I remember what I was demonstrating against" blah blah.."succees=evil" blah blah

[Adam in Racine WI]

Thank you anonymous poster for your thoughts. I don't agree with most of them, but I appreciate your input all the same.

I work for a manufacturing company that employs over 12,000 people in over 60 countries. Our company is privately owned, 5th generation by the same family. We have unions trying to get into our plants all the time, and they fail 98% of the time. Management never even gets involved...the line workers themselves are shooing away these union reps!

I guess that's my own counterexample to the notion that "no company can become a large global corporation with out exploiting labor". Seems like employees with my company, and at Starbucks, have every opportunity to unionize and are CHOOSING not to because they are not really being exploited!

Of course, any pro-union person will fight that idea to the death...because if it's true, then they are out of a job!

people are always forgetting that unions are businesses too.

without new members/dues they can not funtion. so they go out and attempt to get more customers...

they follow all the capitalist bs that was quoted above just as readily as a corporation does...

just they have the ties to the mafia that make them extra special to be in business with...

the IWW is not affiliated with the mafia

and the $2000 was in back pay, not a super special settlement

i suggest some of the posters pick up a labor history book from your favorite borders and read about the IWW. it doesnt seem like anyone who bashed them is educated beyond a third grade level

[deusx]

I am definetly educated to the fourth grade level. And everything I bash the wobblies with comes from their own publications.
I agree, the IWW is not affiliated with the mob, but the generalization the poster made is a reasonable assumption to draw. Considering the labor movement has been a haven and cash cow for organized crime since it's inception and up to today (hello longshoreman under investigation currently). I think that IWW not be really involved with the mob might partly be because your membership is so dismally low it's not worth their while.
I won't make a guess at your political affiliation, but I tend to notice those who espouse socialistic views treat anyone who disagrees with them as if they are uneducated cretins. The contempt displayed is obvious and very much seems a theme of the unionistic circles.

"Fact is no company can become a large global corporation with out exploiting labor."

Not really. Plenty of companies, after some negotiations with the labor, treat their employees really well. My local grocery is part of a huge, enormously successful multinational, and they pay their hourly workers an average of $32,000 a year, along with excellent benefits. Unfortunately that's only for full-time or I'd go work there right now.

[WSDave]

Gosh, where to begin...

"Fact is no company can become a large global corporation with out exploiting labor."

If by "exploiting" you mean offering pay for work, then you're right. Any other meaning and your arguement falls short.

"But the single most important reason Starbucks is in trouble is that it went public. Publicly traded corporations have no interest other than in making profits for their shareholders, and that puts them diametrically at odds with human survival."

It seems you don't understand the value of staying a private company. You see, Starbucks faces huge oversight, not just from the Fed (as a public company), but from shareholders and the public as well. Starbucks can't sneeze without the press and public offering a tissue.

Contrast that with Halliburton(sp?), a private company. Who the hell will ever know what they're up to? No public oversight, nobody to answer to.

"Clear cutting is more profitable in the short term than managing forests, and working humans to death is more profitable than paying humans a wage with which they can sustain themselves."

Using logging as an example, do you really think that the people who run Big Lumber are stupid? Do you think that shareholders would pay them millions every year to run an unprofitable company? Do you think that they want to stop making those millions after just a few years? Do you think that they are dumber than you?

Lumber companies replant forests every day, because they know that to be a long term company (and don't think thats not the plan, some have been around for more than a century), they have to have renewable stock, or they go out of business. These people aren't planting for themselves, they're planting for their great-grandchildren.

The IWW will not serve in the best interest of Starbucks employees, because we don't live in (too much of) a communist society (yet). Unions want wage parity between the CEO and the lowest paid worker. But can the janitor run the company? Likely, no. So if the janitor wants a job, he can either go start his own business (which I'm all in favor of), or he can accept that the CEO makes millions because he creates billions, which the janitor can't do.

[STARBUCKS GOSSIP webmaster]

Re: above letter. Halliburton is NOT a private company. It's publicly traded on the NYSE as HAL. Here's the info.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=HAL

[WSDave]

RE: Halliburton

My mistake, but I'm sure you see my point. Choose your own private company and see how much you can find out about them through public sources. Now compare that to any public company.

“If by "exploiting" you mean offering pay for work, then you're right. Any other meaning and your arguement falls short.”

No I do not mean “offering pay for work” work. Exploitation is the process of offering less pay than the value that the work produces. This difference is called profit, and it is essentially a form of legal robbery.

“Using logging as an example, do you really think that the people who run Big Lumber are stupid? Do you think that shareholders would pay them millions every year to run an unprofitable company? Do you think that they want to stop making those millions after just a few years? Do you think that they are dumber than you?”

The answer is always yes they would rather make millions of dollars in the short run than continue to make money in the future, that’s because of the high turnover of top executives in public traded companies. You only stay employed as long as you make a profit and your ability to show continued long-term profit is not as controllable as all that you are after all like every other business to some extent victim to market fluctuations out of your control. So it is best to do what ever it takes to show as high of a short tem profit as possible in order to pocket those stock options, and bonuses before you get the boot.

The result is that the world is not maintaining forests, as your post would suggest, through the wide use of sustainable business practices, but rather that logging like every other big business is appropriating natural resources faster than the replacement rate.

[deusx]

"No I do not mean “offering pay for work” work. Exploitation is the process of offering less pay than the value that the work produces. This difference is called profit, and it is essentially a form of legal robbery."

If only there were some way to introduce laugh tracks in these posts. Your definition of exploitation is radically slanted, much like yourself. It is only exploitation when someone is doing something illegal or improper. Saying " I will pay 7.50 an hour if you come and do a menial task that doesn't even require a high school education." is not illegal or improper.
Profit is legal robbery? Are you totally daft? You have crossed over from being a blatant socialist to communism, congradulations! The point of opening a business is to make profit. If you only had an income large enough to pay expenses, how would the business ever improve or expand? If you don't like capitalism or the concept of being for profit, move on. There are places like that in the world, don't expect the majority to conform to please you.

It gets no more basic than this. Much like any average person, a business wants to only pay as much as it needs to when it requires services or goods. In a market where there are more employers than laborers, the average wage will be competitive. Wage fixing is impossible to do when the Employer pool is large, as there will always be those who won't go along and will instead offer better inducements to get the better employees.

If a worker cannot draw find employment at the premium they think they are worth in such a market, it is not the fault of the employers as they will gladly compete for quality help. The worker unfortunately is rarely willing to look to himself as the responsible party in his loss of value, which is why Unions still manage to hold on by their fingernails when they are for the most part unecessary. Face it, your causes are mostly Quixotic, especially the loons at StarbucksUnion. You claim to care so much about the voice of the workers, so listen to the majority who say no to you. Listen to the majority who realize that if you had your way, wages would indeed artificially inflate with the result being layoffs and firings (after 40 years the members UAW are finally catching on that every few bucks they manage to push their often bloated pay up, four of their coworkers have to be let go to free up revenues to pay them). But of course you won't, because you really don't give a damn about the wishes of the majority, you will just continue to assume we are just stupid and brainwashed and only you know whats best for us. It's ironic how the most radical left always come to resemble the most radical right in actions and attitude.

“It is only exploitation when someone is doing something illegal or improper.”

In the USSR it was completely legal to work a person to death in a work camp. Yet that is exploitation. In the US it is considered proper that women not get paid for their work in the home. Yet that is exploitation.

The only thing that defines exploitation is that the value given is not equal to the value received.

“Saying " I will pay 7.50 an hour if you come and do a menial task that doesn't even require a high school education." is not illegal or improper.”

Just because it is not illegal dose not mean it is not improper. Whether it is proper or not is completely dependent on whether the person you are contracting is, free, and whether the value you are paying is equal to the value you are receiving. Anything else is exploitation and there for by definition improper, regardless of it’s legal standing. In the US slavery was legal, yet it was always improper.

“Profit is legal robbery? Are you totally daft? You have crossed over from being a blatant socialist to communism, congradulations!”

No communism is simply an ideology that believes living in communes is the best social organization. What I have said has no barring on that in the least.

“The point of opening a business is to make profit. If you only had an income large enough to pay expenses, how would the business ever improve or expand?”

It could improve and expand by adding more partners each of which have an equal share in the risks of operating the business.

“If you don't like capitalism or the concept of being for profit, move on.”

I would love to, however, unfortunately I am a prisoner is a world in which states operate a monopoly on movement of goods services and persons.

“There are places like that in the world, don't expect the majority to conform to please you.”

There are places like what? You mean free market democracies? I don’t know of a single one? All I see is capitalist dictatorships, capitalist republics, capitalist monarchies, capitalist theocracies and capitalist social democracies.

“It gets no more basic than this.”

Than what?

“Much like any average person, a business wants to only pay as much as it needs to when it requires services or goods.”

No this is not a universal principle, it is a principle predicated upon competition. However competition is not a natural human condition.

“In a market where there are more employers than laborers, the average wage will be competitive.”

Unless you use an army and police force to repress organized workers from demanding a high rate of pay.

“Wage fixing is impossible to do when the Employer pool is large, as there will always be those who won't go along and will instead offer better inducements to get the better employees.”

However the employer pool is never large because capitalist businesses act to create unfair market advantages for themselves by imposing coercion in to the market, there by making it capitalist rather than free.

“If a worker cannot draw find employment at the premium they think they are worth in such a market, it is not the fault of the employers as they will gladly compete for quality help.”

Of course it’s the fault of the employer. The entire systems of laws that are lobbied for by employers are geared to create a captive workforce that has no other option than to sell their labor.

“The worker unfortunately is rarely willing to look to himself as the responsible party in his loss of value, which is why Unions still manage to hold on by their fingernails when they are for the most part unecessary.”

They are unwilling because they understand that the social contract is arbitrary and slanted in favor of capital.

“You claim to care so much about the voice of the workers, so listen to the majority who say no to you.”

I am a worker

“Listen to the majority who realize that if you had your way, wages would indeed artificially inflate with the result being layoffs and firings (after 40 years the members UAW are finally catching on that every few bucks they manage to push their often bloated pay up, four of their coworkers have to be let go to free up revenues to pay them).”

The loss of jobs in the US is not a result of Unionization. Jobs are being lost in every sector and union membership is at an appalling low of 10%. The loss of jobs is a direct result of capitalists gaming the market.

“But of course you won't, because you really don't give a damn about the wishes of the majority, you will just continue to assume we are just stupid and brainwashed and only you know whats best for us.”

Were as in reality we all know that I am “stupid and brainwashed.”

“It's ironic how the most radical left always come to resemble the most radical right in actions and attitude.”

The only thing we share in common is we are sick of liberal bullshit? However, in action we couldn’t be farther apart. Because while the Right advocates totalitarian dictatorship and the police state, the Left advocates, liberty and faternity.