California judge reviews her ruling in Starbucks tips case

At stake are potentially millions of dollars in tips for current and former Starbucks employees who've worked at any of the coffee chain's 1,400 California stores since October 2000. A lawsuit alleges that Starbucks allowed shift supervisors to share in the weekly distribution of customer tips at each store, violating state law that prohibits employers from taking tips from their employees. (San Diego Union Tribune)

Comments

[fiat lux]

Shifts are hourly workers; they should share in the tips.

I don't get why a shift lead can't get tips.. they aren't our bosses, they are working per hour.. though they do get payed more, which could compensate for the tips.

[Theolaxor]

This makes no sense whatsoever since the Shifts aren't actually employers

[RC]

do supervisors in similar industries get tips?

is this similar to say, making waiters share tips with restaurant managers?

(I don't know, I'm genuinely curious)

I would have a problem with it, if shifts weren't constantly doing the same things as baristas and more. They only get paid a dollar more in most cases. Is that really a lot? And really how much more could a barista get if a shift gets $35 in tips and there are 20 baristas to divide it among? That still doesn't divide up to much more than an extra dollar or two for the individual barista

[deusx]

No RC, a shift would be more like the Head Waiter. He does everything a normal waiter does AND also supervises.

The problem is the Cali Labor law is worded stupidly. There are alot of people who supervise others but are essentially still laborers themselves.

Management should be defined by the percentage of time one spends managing versus being labor. A store manager spends at least 30% of their time, if not more doing reviews, schedules, orders, cash control, supervision, meetings, etc. A shift spends maybe 10% of their time on non labor tasks.

[Sean]

Shifts in Boston get tips. Everyone but a assistant and store mangaer do not get tips,

[DT]

my question is: what kind of bitter, petty barista in CA started the ball rolling on this and why? If I was their SS they would be doing nothing but bitch-work on all my shifts for even trying to take my tips away. And I mean BITCH work, like scrubbing the toilet bowls, constantly.

[Boston Starbucks Rebel]

Yes, that is correct. The state labor laws in the state of California are very different from other states.

but isn't this different from the first time this case came up?

in the original (if i remember correctly) they were allegeding that MANAGERS got tipped out - which is illegal as they are salaried workers... not shift supervisors?

either way, i think SS should be tipped out. they can't hire or fire, which is fundementally why managers are considered outside of the tip pool, as well as the salary part.

this is just another example of someone trying to get what's not theirs, with the american judical system.

:rolls eyes: at both this barista and the lawyer taking the case. heck while i'm at it: rolls eyes at the system that allows it.

[barista c]

I thought this lawsuit was about Assistant Managers getting tips, which is completely different than Shift Supervisors getting tips.

Assistant Managers are salaried and get paid a lot more than the hourly Shift Supervisors.

[Stephen]

Though the workload of a shift vs a barista may be less evident at the average Starbucks, I can assure you it is apparent at busier stores. A shift who is floating a continuous line and keeping track of 10 or more partners (some of break or lunch) is certainly doing a lot more work (and has more responsibility) than the barista who is steaming foam on the Verisimo. Shifts don't just get payed a little bit more, they've earned it and more

[CuteBarista!]

not every shift that a shift supervisor works is one where they are the shift on duty. in that case they are just a barista. kind of hard to make that distinction with tips, then.

also, ASM and SMs get bonuses, which shift supervisors do not. my ASM told me to think of it as her "tips". i know they get them for doing well on snapshots, one would assume they would get them for meeting sales goals, etc., as well.

[Tsehai Abate]

Can I have Mr.Howard Schultz e-mail address please.I have a great idea that I would like to share with him please.Mine is tsehaiabate@aol.com.

Thank you!

[Andy]

I can see how with the way the law is written why it could go either way. The Shift Supervisor is a special case that supervises and directs other employees ("agent") and him/herself with the responsibilities and tasks they all share. You start getting into fishy waters when experienced baristas are holding down the floor when the Supervisor is on break. Can you be an agent and employee at the same time? If this guy were to win, I can't imagine the audit that would take place. Would the State and Fed government payback taxed imputed tip income that shift supervisors declared? Would the hours affected only be the ones when the Supervisor was working as such?

The law does not say a whole lot about the agent. What if patrons where to tip the agent for serviced rendered? Is s/he then considered an employee, a separate employee? Can patrons distinguish the agent? Should that be taken into consideration? I think the government should designate a party to undergo an investigation to determine where patrons want their tips to go. It is essentially their money, and if they want the agent to be included they the agent should be included no matter what the law says.

at our store, you only see the difference between leads and baristas when their is a trainee-- the lead always trains. otherwise, the only difference is that the lead can tell a barista to do something - like "sanitize the outside of the garbage cans" or "dust all of the light fixtures" or "go take your break now"

[cornfrost]

A similar issue is in the news in New York, with restaurant workers claiming management took their tips:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060607/nyw061.html?.v=52

As for our Sbux, the shifts do what the baristas do only more, and they should absolutely get a share of tips.

[JustABarista]

CuteBarista- A shift supervisor should not be on the floor as a barista more than 30 minutes to an hour at a time. If you have SS's working full shifts as baristas, your manager is not doing his job according to the shift compliment. However, I agree that shifts should get tips. They work very hard at my store which is always busy. But I will say, if you are a shift and the patrons can't tell (maybe after a few visits) that you are the supervisor, my guess would be that you aren't doing your job.

[Boston Starbucks Rebel]

To get Howard Schultz's email check out the Starbucks Portal and look it up. Remember this California state labor law so it might be different from the rest of us. I would like the state courts decide the case according to their interpretation. Since I am not in California or specialize in labor law I cannot really state what the situation is like. Labor law is alwahys tricky and remmeber the anti-trust laws were originally used against unions.

[CuteBarista!]

JustABarista...

are you sure about that? i've never heard of that rule. shifts at my store regularly work as baristas, as do the ASM and occasionally the SM as well. it's just a matter of say, a shift opens the store, and the ASM arrives at 7 or 8 in the morning. the shift does not cede authority to the ASM just because he or she is there, after all, it's their shift and their safe (they are the cash controller). this has been the case at all three stores i've worked at the last 2 and a half years.

practicality-wise, if you have a bunch of shift supervisors and they all want near full-time hours (30+ a week), it's nearly impossible to schedule all of them as the shift on duty for every shift they work.

cutebarista, do only shifts, SM and ASM open your store? We often have baristas open our store and then a shift comes in 30 min before the doors are open and they open the safe. Are we alone in this?

[Boston Starbucks Rebel]

Only a shift, ASM and SM should have keys to the store. That is a big violation of Starbucks operating procedure. Baristas may not have keys to open the store. Cease and desist immediately.

[JustABarista]

CuteBarista,

My store was like that for a couple of months, but then the manager told us about the new "shift compliment" procedures. SS's should only overlap for 30 minutes and shifts can only cover a baritas shift if all other options have been exhausted. There are also rules about how many shift superviors your store should have. The SM and ASM are a differnt story, they often work as baristas in my store, but often duck in the back to do admin (check voice mail, e-mail, etc) for 15 minutes at a time, so they really can't be tied to running shifts all the time they are there.

BSR, are you seros that this is a violation? I'm still fairly new (1.5 months) and I opened the store alone for my first time. i came in at 5:30, SM came in at 6:30, Shift came in at 7:30, store opened at 7.

also, how man SS's should a store have? we have 8 ss's and 9 baristas.. normal?

[Bear]

"BSR, are you seros that this is a violation? I'm still fairly new (1.5 months) and I opened the store alone for my first time. i came in at 5:30, SM came in at 6:30, Shift came in at 7:30, store opened at 7."

That's a whole buncha violations.

#1 No partner should ever enter the store alone. Ever. At least 2 people enter the store together every day.

Same goes for closing. All partners leave together. Period. It's safety and security 101.

#2 If your not an SS or above, you should not have keys/codes to the store.

#3 An hour and a half to open the store? We get 45 minutes. And we open at 5:30 AM.

#'s 1 and 2 are enough to get people fired pretty much immediately if not sooner. Might want to have a discussion with your SM PDQ.

[JustABarista]

Well, my store has 30 someodd people on staff. We have an SM, 2 ASMs, 3 SS's and the rest are baristas, so I'd say your store is out of the ordinary.

Bear,

Too true, and that manager is already screwed even if he fixes the problem. All the time and attendence records will show lone baristas opening the store. If one person complains, there will be a new SM position open.

hmm ok this is making somewhat concerned now... Wel I can explain the 90 min to open. It's because we make all of our food on the premises, and there is no way someone could do that in 45 min. It takes 60 min just to bake all of the muffins, and thats what people want when they come in in the morning.
As per closing, we always have two people close; a ss and a barista, and in that case the barista never touches keys, codes, safe etc.
It seems like its only in the morning and in the proportion of ss:baristas that we are off the mark.

to add: since i started at *$'s, it has only ever been a barista, SM or ASM open the store Never a ss. The ss's always come in at 6:30 or 7:30 depending on when the sm comes in.

okay wait, this whole shift/sm/asm/barista opening the store thing....is your store a corporate starbucks or a licensed starbucks? i.e. are you in a target or a meijer or other store? Or in canada? It seems the rules are different for those..but if it is a US corporate store then that is definitely wrong for baristas to be opening the store.

i'm in a stand alone store, but I'm in Canada, maybe that's why it's different. Thanks for bringing that up!

[CuteBarista!]

JustABarista - it's so weird that that's the case at your store, since i've worked at so many stores (i'm at my third, but i must've subbed for at least a dozen others by now), and the shifts have always been structured this way. then again, at my current store, we have nearly equal the number of shifts to baristas (probably about 6 shifts, 7 or 8 baristas).

the whole SS complement thing is based on percentages of sales, as well as operating hours.

if your store is busier, you'll be able to have more SS's working your "barista" shifts. if it's slower, there will be no more than a half hour overlap.

it's all about how much the store can afford.

if you're busy, then having another person who can run the floor during peak periods helps, when the CC is on break, or doing the deposit..
otherwise it's just a free for all, with baristas running themselves...which is more lawsuit worthy than this crappy tipping out SS debate
(that this thread is about...)

the 8 shifts to 9 barista senerio is an odd one. i wish it were my store...(short a shift or two) but not the ordinary type...

ok, another question. Is it normal to have baristas' with cashes that do cashing out?

At my store one SM two ASM, six SS and 25 baristas..... it is always a SS, SM or ASM that opens or closes the store.
ASMs and SMs are not supposed to be baristas but get stuck all the time on the bar or registers because of scheduling problems.

[Rikker]

::to all::

READ THE MANUAL

I'm just about to promote to Shift Supervisor and I can tell you that most of what I'm hearing is complete crap and your store managers should be fired for allowing this to happen.

The person above was right... these things are straight from the Shift Supervisor training manual. (which takes everything straight from the store operations manual)

#1. A store is not to be closed or opened alone (except for extreme emergency, like a blizzard.)

#2. A barista is NEVER to have the store key. Regardless of having the safe code, it is not their job to open the store.

If I were the person who had been with S.B. for 1 1/2 months and opening the store, I'd be SCARED!!! What if the place gets robbed? You're IMMEDIATELY on the suspect list, and pretty high since you're new to the company. Key=liability

#3. I haven't found out yet how many S.S. are optimal in a store, but I would assume payroll-wise that there is generally only supposed to be one scheduled on the floor at a time, with a little overlap to count out the safe.

9 sounds a little high, unless none of them come to work very often. We have... I think 6 at our store and we're very high volume. It seems strange to me to have as many shifts as baristas. Do your shift supervisors work at the same time a lot?

I can't believe this stuff even happens with the way we get audited down here in CA, unless these are licensed stores. This is why Starbucks stopped licensing (and never should have in the first place).

-Rikker

[jabanga]

newsflash. starbucks still actively licenses stores both new and old. and no licensed stores do not have to follow all the same rules.

[Jared]

As a shift, if we no longer got tips I would step down immediately. My store consistently brings in $1.10+/hr every week and I would then be getting paid more just as a barista. Silly.

[John Molina]

"The suit claims that supervisors are part of management and not entitled to the tips intended for counter workers, or baristas."

Shift SUPERVISOR. They are not Store MANAGERS or Assistant Store MANAGERS. Oi.

"Chapko cited the California Labor Code that defines an agent of management as being 'every person other than the employer having the authority to hire or discharge any employee, or supervise, direct, or control the acts of employees.'"

Every person other than the EMPLOYER (SM/ASM?) ... And last time I checked, Shift Supervisors DO NOT have the authority to hire or discharge employees. That's MANAGEMENT's job.

If that Judge Cowett is a smart judge and a judge for the people, which I honestly hope she is, she'll dismiss the case ASAP.

Well, I just checked and my hopes have been shattered.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060623/news_1b23starbuck.html

Hey, Sbux Corp lawyers, give 'em hell!

[Gary]

Look, anyone should be able to receive a tip. Unfortunately state lawmankers across our nation have errantly allowed business to mandate tip pooling where consumers are prohibited from deciding who should receive their tip. You see, it should be up to the customer to determine who receives tips. California's insistance that certain types of managerial workers cannot receive tips is ridiculous, especially when Starbucks for example, has no problem with managers receiving tips. The reason managers are being denied an ability to receive tips from the public is because the courts have deprived citizens of their right to determine for themselves who should receive their tip. BY allowing employers to mandate that tips be pooled the courts have suggested and subsequently established that it is the courts right to determine who should receive the consumer's tip. Why would the courts rule that it is the court's right to determine who should receive a tip? That's what business owners wanted.

Businesses have for many years payed off judges to rule that the tips an individual worker receives are not his property. Many class action lawsuits have been brought against employers for forcing their workers to share their tips. In order for business to get away with this blatant theft employer mandated tip pooling creates, it was neccesary to get judges to rule that the tips individual employees receive from the public are not their sole property. You see, if a judge rules that tips are not the sole property of an individual worker and instead rules that tips are the property of a group of workers, employers may take tips away from those individuals who receive them so that they may be shared with other workers. The problem is, judges who rule that tips are not the property of the individual who received them are subsequently ruling that tips belong to a group of workers. Since the courts have ruled that tips are to be viewed as the property of a group of workers they must now determine who should or shouldn't share in them. The biggest problem the courts have created for themselves, however is, how do they now substaite that certain workers should not share in the tips. By errantly allowing employers to collect the consumers tip for a tip pool where tips will be shared among a group of workers, the courts have stripped the public of their right to determine for themselves who their tip should belong to. While it is and should be the consumer's right to determine who should receive his tip, the courts have allowed employers an ability to prevent consumer's from determining who should receive their tip and have subsequently place themsleves in the awkward position of now having to determine who should or shouldn't receive a tip. They look like idiots now and it's all because they have attempted to justify an illegal act by employers. Employer required tip pooling is illegal. It's also unconstitutional. It will become more and more evident as the consequenses of the rulings allowing employer mandated tip pooling continue to reveal themsleves.

[Gary]

It sounds to me like the judges in California are agent's of the employer. Obviously, they are blatantly presuming to have an authority to control the acts of employees for they are ruling on who employees must share their tips with. When judges rule that employees may be required to share their tips with workers who provide direct service to the customer, those judges are acting as agents of the employer for they are clearly controling the employee's acts. The employee who receives a tip is the only person who should control his act of sharing his tip with other workers.

California Labor Code defines an agent of management as being "'every person' other than the employer having the authority to hire or discharge any employee, or supervise, direct, or 'control the acts of employees'."

Since California state law clearly states that that no employer or agent shall collect, take, or receive any gratuity or a part thereof that is paid, given to, or left for an employee by a patron, it would only stand to reason that judges who attempt to control the acts of employees, by ruling as to who they must share their tips with, are establishing themselves as agent's of the employer. As an agent of the employer they cannot appropriate the employee's tips to be shared among any group of workers for they are also prohibited from "taking" any gratuites.

The word "take" is defined as "to appropriate for one's own or another's use or benefit;

It sounds to me like Calfornia's laws prohibit judges from appropriating the worker's tips. Judges who rule that employers may share the tipped employee's tips with workers who provide direct service to the customer are clearly appropriating the tipped employee's tips and in doing so are both substantiating themselves as agents of the employer and "taking" the gratuities paid, given or left for an employee.

I guess that would mean that employers cannot force their workers to share their tips with other workers so the business can save money by paying those who are illegally receiving a share of the tips lower wages and salaries. If judges are controling the acts of employees by ruling that employees must share their tips with workers who provide direct service to the customer, which they clearly are, judges are establishing themselves as agents of the employer by controling the acts of employees and at the same time are taking the gratuites which have been paid, given or left for an employee by appropriating them for another's use or benefit.

blah blah blah.

you know gary, if it doesn't fit in one post - it's probably too long.
just a hint.

QUESTION: if the guy wins the case, wouldn't the supervisors be held liable for the money instead of starbucks? i mean, why should starbucks have to pay back money it never took?

maybe because it was under the direction of starbucks that they got tipped out, but i'd think the most 'fair' way for these lame baristas to get their 'fair share' is to look their shifts in the eye and tell them they want their money back...

does anyone even read Gary's post, I tried but fell asleep at the keyboard.

[Gary]

Look, even if the workers win their case against Starbucks, they lose. The judge has already ruled that the employees will not be compensated for the majority of the tips that were taken. The judge has ruled that Starbucks will only be at risk for the tips taken during the previous 30 day period before the class action suit was filed. While the workers may be compensated for the tips taken during the 30 day before the lawsuit was filed, Starbucks will not be held accountable for the tips that were stolen before that.

Business just keep winning and workers just keep losing and it's all because our lawmakers think it's ok for business to take their employee's tips away from them and share them in an employer mandated tip pool. How much money must be stolen until this country wakes up?

[liu li ping]

Can I have Mr.Howard Schultz e-mail address please.I have a great idea that I would like to share with him please.Mine is cake0000@126.com
Thank you!

Howard isn't the person you should be talking to. If you have an idea for a product or service you should call 1-800-23-latte. Thats the customer service line.

Howard isn't the person you should be talking to. If you have an idea for a product or service you should call 1-800-23-latte. Thats the customer service line.

[simantha]

How often does starbucks do reviews on employees. ASM and shift supervisors

[sbuxgirl]

SS get their review every 6 months, just as u did as a barista, rated on a scale of 1-3, 3 being the highest, and from there i think u get 1-3 percent of what u make as a wage increase. ASM on the other hand, along with SM get a review once a year, they themselves write it and go over it with their DM or SM.