Starbucks Union

cheapwhore,

I don't think its fair to say we would all blow our money if we got a little more. Using that logic we shouldn't get raises at all. Instead of raises we would just get money management courses provided by Starbucks.

People make it on what Starbucks pays them. People aren't dying from starvation or malnutrition or lepersy working at Starbucks. Do you have to be though? Is all that necessary before we start raising our eyebrows and questioning the status quo? I personally don't think so.

Asking for more money for the same job I'm doing now is not contradictory. Its called a raise. My performance and effectiveness improves with time I get paid more with time. As productivity rises, wages rise. Someone screwed the pooch though because my productivity has increased leaps and bounds ahead of my wage.

If I didn't have a good work ethic I would match my productivity to my wage and I would be deemed a slacker. Starbucks gets way more than it pays for from me and anyone else out there doing their job. My union support stems from me knowing this and wanting to do something about it.

What will you do when you don’t finish that degree? What will you do ten years ten years form now when you are still working the Wal-Mart’s, Starbucks, and Borders? Perhaps then you will think that Organizing with your fellow workers when you were young, when you could take some risks, would have been a good idea in order to ensure an income that could feed your familys doing the work that you could get.

Not everyone is on their way to a better life. For many of us, this is the hand we are dealt.

Why should we be satisfied with working under benevolent slave master for more succulent crumbs. Just because they are better crumbs don’t make them anything more than crumbs.

Even in the Ghetto the inmates who manned the ovens were fed well for a while before they were burned in turn. Is that the most you can offer? A justification for servitude, inhumanity and tyranny?

We aren’t just organizing for a better wage; we are organizing for the abolition of the wage slave system.
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1. If you don't appreciate the way our system is set up in this country go somewhere else. You are free to do so.

2. If you want to really see what "slave system" means go live in Africa or Columbia and be a farmer where because of the way their system is set up you work 18 hours a day just to eat and live...nevermind "wages" or "extra money". Go live there, where you have to have more children just to have some help with your day's work. Maybe you would prefer that to our "slave system"?

3. Organizing a union is great and wonderful if it makes you happier with your job. But there's a difference between "pro-active" positive energy towards change and misguided, ignorant fanatics. Which one are you I wonder?

Againstignorance – I think a world with out borders where individuals could organize and travel freely in pursuit of the best possible life is a worthy goal.

It’s easy to say leave than it is to actually leave.

Further more for us who care about our communities, Organizing with our families and neighbors is the best remedy to insure a better world for our children and ourselves. It is for that very reason that governments are instituted by people to ensure that their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not infringed upon.

As for slavery, real slavery, it exists in these United States. People working to just get by, people working with out compensation at all. People working under threat of death. But that hardly makes Wall-Mart a socially noble corporations, Just as Wall-Mart does not excuse the systematic theft of the value of Starbucks workers work.

no gods no masters

I think it's awfully greedy to demand more wages for yourself when you admit it personally that there are slaves in the United States. Don't you think you should focus your efforts on freeing them, before you pamper yourself with money that those people might be earning?

If there weren't Baristas to fill your spot at 7.25/hr, then they might consider giving you more. Unfortunately, there are, and nomatter how many extra dollars you upsell by adding shots, you're not going to pay for your extra expense in labor in the long run...

Is slavery now the standard by which we measure our quality of life? As long as we are better of than slaves we are okay? Where are your standards?

I don't think that one worker being better off than any other worker has much do with whether or not we are compensated or treated fairly at Starbucks.

It is silly to say a service industry wage worker lives like a king just because when compared to a slave they're doing ok.

Just because you live in a rat trap hole in the wall apartment with dead bodies and rotten cheese smell all day and night that some slum lord charges way too much rent for doesn't mean you should be elated to live there just because you are not homeless.

I'm better off than the bum, the wino, the street person, the bag lady, the slave, the refugee, the third world country low wage worker...

So I should be content? That would be setting my standards pretty low.

I can't do that.

"I think it's awfully greedy to demand more wages for yourself when you admit it personally that there are slaves in the United States."

It's not at all. People working at bucks aren't that far from the slave. It's really mean of you to call these people who don't make much money "greedy." "Greedy" is someone who'll feel okay about taking home six figures while all the workers at the store barely pull down $14k a year. That's greed.

I'm a sometimes customer, and would feel a little better knowing that people who serve me my drinks get treated well. As for the cost -- it's already a pretty expensive luxury, and a few extra cents on the price doesn't mean that much. I'll only go to the store around five or ten times a year. Coffee isn't healthy.

I think a company that hires mostly high school and college students for part time work does not need an extensive union. as long as the worker is happy with their job, what does it matter. I understand that people want better money for their work, but thats not where the fault is. The fault is not with the company, but with the government that the company operates in. Tax systems and insurance is what takes away most of the money from the workers. Food in the U.S. is cheaper than it has ever been, housing prices are going down. Starbucks provides its workers one thing that the federal government will not, and that is proper and free health care...i dont consider that a crumb, that is a slice of the pie. Even if that slice is not one billionth of what the company execs make, its still better than alot of jobs. Wal-Mart is an example of a company that needs unions, because they will not give the proper benefits. People get too caught up in this wage labor and big business thing. The fact is, this country has it better off than any other country in the world, since im not doing this as a full-time job, just a part time while i go to school, i have no right to complain about getting 6.75 an hour. I'm extremely lucky, my college is paid for, for as long as i want to go, i have a house to live in while i go to college, and i have alot of things that alot of other do not have. That is why i wont be a part of a union, because me being in a union is like the well off kid just wanting more. I have all I need, if other want to unionize and fight for more money, thats fine. But im not going to complain, other have it worse than me, and i want to help those less fortunate, thats why im in school...so i can better myself, and through that i will be able to give more and do more for those less fortunate for me and continue that legacy of giving and doing whats right through my children. I say this not because I am a communist, i say this to make a point, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" that to me says, since i have the ability to do well, my need isnt as much as someone else's need, so i need to give to those who do not have the same ability as me. And i think Starbuck's business model fits into that system very well by buying free trade coffee and donating money to many many charities.

Jingramgbr – Have you considered helping to organize Starbucks workers who are less fortunate than you in your store?

Being a member of a Union is not about getting hire wages, and better benefits. Being a member of a Union is about solidarity.

You say the problem is the government. I could not agree with you more. You are absolutely right to say that Government is shirking its responsibility to provide Universal Single payer healthcare, and demand that every employer pay a living wage?

Unions have played an important historical role in advocating, NO demanding that the promise of America is realizable for every American.

That Life, Liberty, and the right to pursue our happiness are secured through legislative action.

It is incumbent upon us, who have the luxury through our success, to fight for those who have not been as fortunate, so that we can all stand proudly as equals, as brothers and sisters, as fellow workers, as family.

no gods no masters

Your message makes it sound as if we live in a democratic society and need to live by its rules at every juncture. This could not be less true. Ultimately, most of the members of this site live in America, which is not a democracy, but a republic. Look it up, it's in the Constitution. The illusion of a democracy is created by liberal politicians looking to polish the image of our country and make it look as if everything is running smoothly, which for the most part is running smoothly if you can realize that we live in a REPUBLIC and not a DEMOCRACY.

If we had a "democratically" structured organization, we would be living in a society of communism rather than capitalism. What you described above is communism and if Starbucks, or any other corporation was set up as such, we would all be out of a job. Being a barista at Starbucks is a great opportunity for learning and a stepping ground for achieving something more. By no means does the company or most of the people working for the company expect the barista role to be the end all, be all of life's provision of finances.

There are great opportunities for growth within the Starbucks corporation and those roles can provide a fruitful existence. If it is your belief that such roles create authoritarian leadership, then that is your opinion of capitalism in general, not just of the Starbucks corporation. In that case, you have a problem with the American system in general and should most likely move elsewhere because it is not going to change anytime soon.

One of the major themes in most of your messages comes in the form of every citizen of the United States deserving the American lifestyle. It is important to note that anyone who is born in or comes to America can achieve that lifestyle, but they need to work hard to achieve more. The golden lifestyle is not going to be handed to you on a platinum platter. It is true that some people are going to have it easier than others, but ultimately you reap the rewards that you sow.

Liberals like Bush? I grant you that America is not democratic, but that argument hardly is in your favor. You might as well brag about how little freedom we enjoy and how much tyranny we live with.

Of course this is complete speculation on your part. There are many separations between Communism and Capitalism, for instance Parecon, or Bioregionalism, or for that matter Free markets.

But lets just say for the sake of argument you are right, if this was democratically governed and respected individual liberty how would this be bad.

Are people jobless in communes and cooperatives?

What more? How to sell out your ideals and become a wage slave.

Clearly, but that dose not excuse Starbucks exploitation of it’s employees economic vulnerability by paying them less then the full value of their labor.

Like becoming a Mangers and working extraordinarily long hours with out receiving overtime pay?

True, but that does not lessen the evil of Starbucks role in perpetuating tyranny.

I’m certain the same was said to abolitionists and suffragists, but things in America do change, because we have a strong libertarian tradition that challenges the forces of tyranny that conspire to oppress us.

You are absolutely right, and that is exactly why Starbucks workers and all workers must organize industrially in to one big union.

The rewards of sowing the seeds of Unionization are Peace, Prosperity and Freedom. But the rewards of Corporatism are Conflict, Poverty, and Tyranny