Starbucks Union

Hmm...I wouldn't say verisimo's cause "deskilling."
Unless deskilling and RSI are related...hehe

Actually, I think most of the "skill" comes from knowing recipes, pouring milk, and creating a flow so you can create yummy drinks quickly. These are the skills your management and customers are going to notice more than your supposed skill of tamping----that is indeed the only difference when it comes down to it.

Supposed skill of tamping? Have you ever tamped? Have you ever had to adjust the grind every fifteen minutes on a grinder? Did you know barometric pressure effects the length of the shots? Do you know the extensive cleaning guidlines that must be followed to keep a La Marzocco from breaking? Recipes are memorization and thats it. I don't even really need to respond to someone who calls tamping a "supposed skill"? Because I know everyone that read that is either shaking their head or laughing.

The Verismo has taken all the art out of our job. These days we are hardly real Baristas and our espresso is as low quality as ever...While i'm sure they have helped cut down on injuries some what they have also made us easier to replace. When i started on an old machine it took months before you were decent, now its a matter of days. The fact that we dont need that skill any more makes us even more worthless to the company...how long before we start seeing starbucks vending machines? or robots? lol

I LOVE this machine!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I worked for Sbux in 1998-2000 and just re-joined again a month ago. The store I now work for is in the process of redecorating and just got the Verismo in last night. I used it for the first time this morning (I'm an opener). I can't tell you how much I adored working with the Verismo. I know that the die-hard baristas feel it is infringing on the art of pulling a shot, but I maintain that art goes out the window when we have a line of 5-15 or more people waiting for a drink. I've seen baristas throw 8 second shots and 31 second shots or worse into drinks when the line looks bad. No one rinses the shot glasses between shots and who knows how many times milk of the wrong temp has been poured or steamed more than twice. The Verismo gives us an opportunity to actually more easily adhere to Sbux standards that were being skimped on previously. PLUS I must have conserved about 1/3 of the milk that I ordinarily would have ended up tossing due to having to re-pull short/long shots so having to have pitchers of ready milk pre-steamed, sitting and waiting, at just the right temp and then needing to be tossed once they'd been steamed twice.

Automatic Vs Manual machines:

Anyone who thinks they can make more drinks on an Automatic machine faster than I can on a manual one, I have three words:
Bring It On.
I was trained on a Marzocco and now work in a brand new store with a Verissimo and I can say with absolute certainty that these machines aren't as great as everyone makes them out to be. I know both machines inside and out and I would almost go so far as to take a pay cut just to have the Marzocco back. The Verissimo is slower (by far) and the calibration is something you have to do every hour rather than time each individual shot. It's just not worth it to me, and I from many a customer standing point, the Verissimo's shots are often too weak. These are customers that come from regularly going to a Marzocco store. Calibration problem? Maybe...but that just proves my point. Marzocco shots are good no matter what because if they aren't, they aren't used. It's that simple. Rather Verrissimo shots are used without question 90% of the time. While a Verrissimo pulls 2 shots of questionable quality, I can pull 6 shots on a Marzocco that I know are ideal for use...all that and have 2 different pitchers of milk steaming at once. You just can't do that on a Verissimo, even if you have 2 machines side by side (which is sad when it takes two of the new machines to come close to the performance of an old machine).

We got a Verisimo a couple months ago.

Customers have asked me about the quality of shots from the Verisimo versus the LaMarzocco, and what I tell them is this: "When the Verisimo is calibrated properly, then it pulls a more consistent, better shot than about 2/3rds of barista could pull on the old machine, even on their best day. But, yes, a skilled barista on the LaMarzocco, with enough time can pull a superior shot to the Verisimo.

Do you test the shot length on the Verisimo hourly? Have you tasted a short or a long pull from the Verisimo? (Ugh!)

The lack of wrist pain, and the slight amounts of time that I don't have to spend now making drinks make one BIG difference: the ability to entertain the customers when I have a couple of seconds at the bar.

Once you know the routine stuff and have memorized the recipes, the whole "quality of the Starbucks experience" comes down to how you interact with the customer. Do you energize their day? With humor, with authentic interest in the customer's life or their experience that morning or evening? At Disney theme parks, everyone is a "cast member" .. from the moment you clock in, you are "on stage."

After learning the operational routine, the entire job, as far as I can see, is about being an improvisational actor, lifting people's spirits, creating "Third Place" comfort and welcome, and entertaining them. No machine will replace those skills. Being able to make an old LaMarzocco hum and spit out good shots was satisfying, no doubt .. but being able to make people feel good is even more satisfying. There's a slight shift in emphasis in terms of skills, but for the better, I'd say.

(Tips: some will never tip, some will tip no matter what you do or don't do .. but the tiprate soars on days when our team was "on" and entertaining and funny .. I've counted!!)

Trust me .. if a union didn't demand the replacement of the LaMarzocco's, solely because of the RSI, they would be lynched. So pretending that a union would have protected those "skills" is naive in the extreme.

If we're going to join a union, lets choose one that's already organized actors / actresses ... it's the closest to the core of what we do.

well the machines for auto drip aint bad because they new there was to much work we had to do with old one's and it was easier to charge howard shultz Carpul Tunnel syndrom so he decided to get auto one's to shut up the union and plus other reasons, but ASM and SM's makes you do other stuff at the same time makes drink as well and being short staff might be another reason for having automatic machines! It's the same what there doing to the conductors in NYC there getting rid of them and just having a motormen to drive and there is a automatic voice machine telling every station!

Good .. getting rid of stupid jobs like one where all you do is announce the stations is a wonderful thing ... and it helps keep the cost of public transportation down.

Of course, unions can NEVER admit that certain jobs should be eliminated, no matter how much sense it makes. It's disloyal to "the workers." Railroads had "firemen" sitting on their gluteus maximi for years and years and for decades(!) after the last coal-fired train stopped running, and the union "won a victory" keeping them there. Useless. On a form of welfare that rewarded them for never learning a new, productive job. They got paid to be useless, to make no contribution at all.

I read on this site something about unions "doing good for the people." Sounds like a big confusion between the European tradition of Worker's Councils and the American tradition.

As it stands now, an American union is a business. The customers are workers, who pay fees and dues. The union supplies collective bargaining with employers and other services .. anything from political lobbying to insurance to education to housing .. some of those services included with dues, others at attitional cost. The American labor union is in no way a charity, even if it has a benevolent fund or operates a separate charitable foundation or trust.

The American labor union has to deliver VALUE .. something worth more to its customers than they have to pay to get it. Unfortunately, once you have a union, if you decide the VALUE isn't there, it's harder to get rid of than quitting a book club or a music subscription. And if the value is marginal .. hey, the union winds up spending a lot of time and money trying to convince you of the VALUE you're getting, just like car manufacturers do (most of those ads on TV are to make people feel good about the car they already bought, not to get them to buy a new one today.)

If you promise me that I'll get paid for doing a job that can be done better and more cheaply by a machine -- and you promise me that I can keep that job forever and get paid and do nothing at all, even when the machine is installed, well, to me that's actually a disservice -- something of negative value.

Unions ~can~ be creative, but usually are not .. no more so than "business".

There is no way. Is this really a real question? All of you are completely insane. It is like a McDonald’s employee asking if the new hamburger machine has taken the art out of making their burgers. I guarantee you; if your customer is getting their drink faster they don’t care if you are no longer a supposed "artist". All of you, if you are feeling disenfranchised with your job LEAVE and get a new one.
DONE.

Not DONE. For us to leave our jobs into the great unknown of the labor market would be a foolish mistake. The Verismo has made our jobs easier and made the Baristas more expendable. Thats a fact that every Barista at Starbucks must realize.

However, just because we are even more expendable than before doesn't mean we should expend ourselves and commit economic suicide (quitting).

The people involved in organizing this union are the real lunchbox heros of tomorrow. History will remember this movement as one of the catalysts for a better retail working environment across the board. Starbucks is just a tree in a forest of shitty retail jobs. Its okay though, because ladies and gentlemen, the lumberjacks have arrived.

We do not seek to destroy Starbucks as the above statement might lead you to believe. If Starbucks fails then this particular part of the movement looses its direction. Starbucks and its workers have a codependent relationship. Codependent and abusive relationship at times. As a union we will able to give this relationship a little counseling to end the abuse.

You can call us insane, thats fine, I can deal with that. Part of me feels a little crazy going up against the feelgood company of the century. But then I come to the realization that I am not going up against this company, I am going up against injustice and I am going up against my own fear of standing up for whats right. The struggle is not against Starbucks the struggle is against the ideology that retail workers somehow deserve whatever it is they may get.