Another week, another round of Bad Employer news about Wal—oh wait, we mean Starbucks this time, which actually has a lower rate of insured employees than the discount chain (42% versus 47%). Last Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board accused Starbucks of “unlawful anti-union activity” at a store in Michigan, similar to the charges it’s currently on trial for in New York.
The Industrial Workers of the World—the union that’s been campaigning to organize Starbucks employees for a few years now—claims the chain “threatened to terminate a worker for union activity and denied union members access to the store bulletin board.”
Starbucks has until this Friday, September 28th, to settle the Michigan case or proceed to a Labor Board trial as in New York.
In the meantime, Starbucks just lost a motion to defeat a class action from 900 managers seeking overtime pay, and is being investigated over whether it failed to honor the terms of a 2006 settlement involving other anti-union conduct in Michigan.
We suppose Starbucks could start offering $4 pounds of coffee to its employees, but somehow that feels less satisfying than full medical coverage. So remember to tip your barista—that tip box might be doubling as the staff insurance pool.
“Starbucks: More Charges of Union-Busting” [Business Week]
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@Chicago7: did i say that?
i did say that SEIU is doing a top-down organizing campaign, which sucks for the people that need the union the most. doctors (who already have benefits) are being organized first, while the servers in the lunch room (probably don’t even get sick days) are told to get to the back of the line. doctors already have bargaining power; a custodian not so much so. both are necessary to make a hospital work.
their idea is that doctors don’t join the janitor’s union, but janitors will join a doctor’s union & a hospital that is 100% SEIU unionized is more powerful than one that is fragmented. makes sense – still sucks for those that need a union most.
& then i said ideally [all] employees shouldn’t need a union. everyone should be able to collectively bargain (should they choose) without the need for an outside representative. just as superiors call subordinates in for a meeting to discuss goals & explanations, the subordinates should be given an opportunity to meet & discuss what they need in compensation to be able to focus on their job without fear of retribution.
in the perfect world…
@mac-phisto: ^^ EXPLANATIONS should be EXPECTATIONS. need…more…coffee…
@mac-phisto: Fortunately, there are a bunch of caffeinated foods on the market, and most of them don’t use coffee. Which is nice, since a cup of coffee feels like a hoggle of coffee for me (which is why I generally avoid the stuff).
@mac-phisto:
How are you going to collectively bargain without a representative? Everybody goes to the boss’s office? Hee. Most of the time, the people doing the bargaining are people who work at the company and also act as union steward. They get help, of course, from the main union.
@ahwannabe: *sigh*, it’s not the employer’s job or responsibility to provide insurance. That said, many employers do offer it. Therefore, if you want it, one option is to work for someone who offers it. Forcing an employer who doesn’t offer it to do so via union action is, IMHO, wrong. In other words, just because some employers offer it does not mean it’s a responsibility all employers must shoulder.
@Chicago7: The system works fine as it is. I know many impoverished people. All of them have free health care provided by the state. I also know middle class people who don’t have health care (because they make too much money and their employer doesn’t offer it) and I don’t feel a bit sorry for them when they bitch about doctor’s bills while I’m helping them hang their new 52″ plasma. Basically, people who honestly can’t afford it do have bountiful access to care here; people who can afford it but choose not to, don’t. I see no reason to bail the latter group out.
@AngrySicilian: Don’t be ridiculous. I never suggested child labor and you know it. I said “If you’re doing a job my 10 year old could do.” I didn’t say “We should hire 10 year olds to do it.” I’ve read your posts and I know you’re intelligent enough to understand the difference, so please stop playing stupid in a futile attempt to discredit me.
@jimconsumer: No, was more of an attempt at poking fun at you for demeaning Starbucks workers by suggesting that a 10 year old could do their job. Reductio ad absurdum. I think my other points regarding health care were the more substantial parts of my response.
What’s with all this anti-union sentiment? I mean it’s not like people are leaving comments here maturely disagreeing with unions, they are outright hating on them with comments about them being anti-American and the like. It just really seems ignorant to rant on like that. What I really wonder is how many of the anti-union commenters on here are actually union members. I’m sure none of them are. Why the hate? Are you mad because I’m in a union (UBC Local 2090) and your not? Are you mad because your employer pays you less than or barely what you deserve, where as I make enough to support myself and family? Are you mad because I have full health benefits, a pension, and an annuity to look forward to when I retire? I know they’re are some lazy people in unions, there are also lazy people in non-union jobs, that’s life, get over it. In every industry you’ll find lazy people, just like no matter where you live, there’s always some asshole neighbor of yours living on your block. But does that mean unions are completely horrible? No, of course not, no union is perfect, some are better than others, but to go on about how they ruined America and all that crap is ignorant. The world of business is much more complex than to say that unions ruined it all. Also as far as people going on saying that Starbucks employees should be happy with what they got, that’s just because Americans have gotten so used to being screwed by their employers that they think it’s perfectly normal to make $200 a week with no benefits. They think it’s perfectly normally that when someone gets seriously injured the first thought that runs through their head isn’t “I wonder if I’m gonna make it through this ok”, but rather “Since I have no insurance, maybe I don’t need to go to that hospital and I can treat myself”. Regardless what everyone says about unions there is still one undeniable truth, if American employers treated and compensated their employees fairly then unions would not have been created, nor would they still exist in the first place. I’m proud and quite happy that I’m a union member. I’m not looking to make tons of money and get rich being lazy as some would think union members aspire to do. I’m just looking to make an honest days pay for an honest days work.
@Buran:
Historically, I have always disliked unions. I worked for a grocery chain when I was in high school where we were forced to join a union and pay dues and it was a joke. My father works with several people at his current job that lost their jobs when their plant closed down due to unionized workers sitting around and not doing any work and bleeding the company dry.
However, I will say that I love my current unionized job. I work for a major aerospace company where we build commercial aircraft for one of the biggest names in airplanes, and the pay and benefits are outstanding. We get quarterly raises and I have cheap, affordable health insurance with no deductibles or co-pays that covers me and my family. But we are not bleeding the company dry. Why? The union here is not corrupt. If you are fired for being incompenent or not doing your job, the union will *not* protect you. There is no union-mandated quota for the quantity or quality of work; the company decides that, and the union enforces it. The union expects you to work hard and abide by company rules, and we do. In return for our hard work, the union secures us the highest wages and best benefits of any employer in the state. The company profited over $4 billion dollars last year, and that was after paying the employee wages and providing benefit packages to the eleven-thousand employees that work at this plant.
There are a lot of corrupt unions out there, just as there are a lot of corrupt companies, but I think the place I work at is a shining example of how if the union and the company work together, everyone wins.