Starbucks Union

You will get your forms sometime soon after you have completed your third month. Then basically all you do is select which plan you want (go for the middle one) call up the number they give you and they'll walk you through the rest.

Just make sure you do it within the specified window of time or else you won't be eligible to enroll until next August. Also watch your hours and make sure you get at least 240 each quarter or else they will drop you like a ton of bricks.

Good luck!!!

You can actually sign up when you get close to your 3 month mark as long as you have accumulated 160 hrs. You can select your plan at http://lifeat.sbux.com/QuickLinks_US.html, call the number and they will sign you up so that you are eligible on your anniversary. Luck to you mainintaining the benefits. Starbucks enforces policy to keeping hours low so that hardly anyone qualifies.
fraplitexxcaramelwithwithwhipohplease

This is complete fantasy. Apparently you have no idea what a large percentage of partners work at Starbucks JUST for the benefits. I think there are like 4 people at my store that do exactly that. All you have to do is say:

"I am mostly interested in the benefits I get from working part time here at Starbucks and am only willing to work 20-25 hours a week to obtain and maintain these benefits."

Starbucks has no policy that hampers people's scheduled hours to cut back on partner benefit costs. That is just absurd.

The Starbucks in Santa Barbara, California will schedule you less than 20 hours per week. If you don't get enough hours and say you want more, they tell you to call other stores. If this is inconvenient, then too bad for you.

Besides, you might get 20 hours per week, then 19.75 hours, then 12.75 hours, then 18 hours, then 16 hours, then 20 hours, then 24 hours, then 12 hours.

There is no "formal" policy to cut back hours; however, in practice, they kept everyone at just below the minimum. (Shift supervisors, however, might get enough hours to qualify for benefits.) Even worse, with the people at my store, you might have been averaging 20 hours per week, so you get the enrollment forms in the mail, and the very next week, you get 14 hours. Additionally, Starbucks would round to the nearest minute. So if you are 3 minutes short of the necessary total hours for a particular quarter, you will not qualify.

Need benefits? See my post in this thread.
Your job not giving you any benfits?

Too bad seventy-five percent of Stabucks partners qualify for benefits. That really sounds like they're trying their hardest to keep it from us. Did you also know that Howard spends more on health insurance than coffee beans? Oh, you must have kept that one hidden.

75% of partners get benefits? I would be more interested to know what percentage of retail-level baristas (not shift supervisors, managers, corporate workers, roasters)get benefits. In Santa Barbara, California, they ALWAYS cut hours so that baristas don't qualify for benefits.

That is the percent of people who qualify to get it. How many of that percent do I don't know, but they can if they want to.

Yeah a lot of us qualify for the health insurance but I have yet to see the a number printed by a reliable source. I want to know out of those who qualify, who actually buys into one of the health insurance plans. I also think it would be really interesting to find out what percentage of non-managerial partners have health insurance.

It seems pretty apparent that although a couple of people work for a decent manager who doesn't play games, most of us don't.

I have signed up for benefits. Just last month, I had a physical. Guess what, Cancer. I called benefits last night and found out that it will be pretty much impossible for me to get benefits next quarter because I am not going to get quite up to the 240 hrs. needed to qualify. Even if I use my vacation and sick time. Jan 31 I will have to take the expensive COBRA or do without. My manager says that he schedules me pretty equally along the lines of everyone else. That would be true, we all have crap hours, 12 hours one week, 19 - 21 the next week. I will not get 240.

I guess that Starbucks thinks it is fair for everyone in my store to risk dying for lack of medical attention or incurring astronomical debt. Is this not a union issue? I think it is. I hope that some of you can take off the blinders and see what a transparent PR attempt at being on Fortune's 100 best companies list this whole benefits thing really is.
fraplitexxcaramelwithwithwhipohplease