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Workers at Starbucks in Coolidge Corner and Allston begin unionization drive

WGBH reports they will seek to become members of the Workers United Labor Union, which won a unionization vote at a Buffalo Starbucks.

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Listen to Jack Lemmon, kids. "America works best when we say ' Union Yes'!"

https://www.youtube.com/embed/lywaNRMDxiM

There are a lot of garbage unions out there, but there are some very good ones. The worst union is still probably better than Starbucks.

*EDIT* I made significantly more in my former union job 10 years ago than Starbucks employees make in the year of our 2021. And it was waaaayyyy more than when I actually worked at Starbucks in the Back Bay.

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Peoples Republic of Cambridge in shambles

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...you're aware that neither of the locations involved is in Cambridge, right?

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Bucks management knows that dominos topple. Candles can be blown out but wildfires can't be stopped.

Go ahead - order that TikTok latte. Notice how all the people behind the counter started humming Bread and Roses as they added the 27 chestnut shots and the 37 shots of peach tea? Notice how someone put a Woodie Guthrie/Billy Bragg mix on the house speakers as they handed you your prize?

Yeah.

Oh. Yeah.

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Stick it so far up their corporate (expletive) that it comes out the other end.

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SEIU must be bullshit.

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Do you know anything about either one?

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The beginning of the end of Starbucks as we know it.

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where will I get watery coffee in the Boston area now?

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Try one of the 13,000 Dunkin Donuts locations around the area

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n/t

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the [good] coffee hadn't kicked in yet

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To simulate Starbucks at home, buy a big can of store-brand coffee beans from the supermarket, pour it out on a cookie sheet, and bake for 6 hours at 500 degrees. Once they're no longer recognizable as of organic origin, grind them up, pour water through them, decant the result into a paper cup, call out an incorrect version of your own name, and set $6 on fire.

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Found the Faux News parrot?

Wanna cracker?

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This might be start of a resurgence of unionized labor in fast food. Now that Starbucks and similar places are desperate for labor, the employees have a lot more power. If that reduces income inequality, it's a good thing.

As a consumer I don't think will impact me one way or another. It will probably reduce the number of Starbucks locations if all stores become unionized.

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Probably holds SBUX. Just saying…

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if we made them work for free our 401Ks would just crush it

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And Starbucks will gladly pass the cost of the union to us.

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I just hate it when the cost of a product I'm buying goes towards paying workers a living wage.

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...are you somehow unaware that they pass pretty much all their costs on to you, except for the ones they extract from workers and vendors by paying them less than the worth of what they're getting?

If the costs bother you, as an informed consumer, you can go elsewhere.

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Companies aren't some weird benevolent entities that charge as little as possible for their goods and services. If they could raise their prices, they would have already done so; they don't leave money on the table and wait around for some excuse like "higher labor costs" to charge more. Costs set a floor for prices, not a ceiling.

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Not a price increase in my six-dollar venti oat milk half-caf sugar-free light whip pumpkin spice latte!

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In the most pedantic sense, the cost is passed to the employees: union members pay dues to cover the administrative costs of running a union. And ultimately, you have to look at the other "costs of the union" as indirect.

The job of a union is just to negotiate on behalf of the workers. Often, that means the workers want more money and/or benefits, so they have to find that money somewhere and it might be by raising prices. But ultimately it depends on what they negotiate. They might not care so much about benefits and focus on other factors that don't cost money.

Businesses make decisions about how they're going to price their products based on a lot of different factors. Unions just change up the decision making process.

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You are going to need more than two stores to make anything happen.

I’ve also noticed the Allston store there charges about 40 cents more for a grande coffee than the other places (about $3.25 compared to $2.85.

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You are going to need more than two stores to make anything happen.

A few days ago, after the Buffalo store voted to unionize, you might have said "you're going to need more than one store to make anything happen". Now that two more have joined in, you say "You're going to need more than two stores to make anything happen" (although I guess now it's three). In a week or a month, what number will you be using to tell the people who are making things happen that they need more to make things happen?

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I’ve been going to a rotation of 6-8 Starbucks for about 20 years now. I probably drop $500 a year there (I don’t care what anyone says, the coffee is good and the service is the best anywhere). Staff on average there last 2 years max. maybe that would change with better wages? Maybe I’ll have to drop $550 a year now? I still will, don’t see a huge price increase happening either way, but I do simply see Starbucks closing one of those stores to mess with the Union, neither seems that busy when I go into them, especially the Allston one (plenty of people sitting around, but not what you might see in the Putterham or Brookline village store in terms of volume)

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Starbucks corporate has been pretty aggressive with some really nasty tactics. I don't think they'd hold up in court, but they're probably gambling on it not making it that far.

And yeah, I'd expect a price increase if the union negotiates for better wages.

(I remember that Clover voluntarily increased wages for all of their employees to at least $15/hr, and prices went up as a result. They were very transparent about it and I was happy to pay the increased amount, though.)

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They are already reducing the number of stores despite a stead increase in traffic so that they can have fewer deliveries.

This means they are also screwing their employees to the wall when it comes to constant work without breaks and trying to schedule around sick time.

Also note: employees aren't fired when stores close - they are reassigned because of the staff shortage. Starbucks is NOT a franchise.

But if they really want Bolsheviks in their washroom, well, this is how they get Bolsheviks breeding in their washroom!

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Overpriced shit coffee place and it's mostly disaffected hipster work staff are making the crowd that overpays for that swill feel better about paying those prices for said swill.

Meanwhile, there's about 10,000 TNC drivers they could give two shits about sleeping in their cars in between runs on 18 hour shifts driving those same patrons that won't even tip them cash.

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All workers deserve collective bargaining power. This knee-jerk "but other man work hard and no complain" rhetoric is even worse than the workshopped anti-union propaganda that executives pay for. You're a dork lol

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You do the job the baristas do and see how you feel after a week.

Otherwise, STFU. You have no idea what you are talking about. At. All.

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Swirly. My favorite white privileged doyenne of UHub. You’ll forgive me if I have more sympathy for people that sleep in their cars and pee into bottles so they can give 28% of each ride they essentially finance to the VC Daddy of one of those disaffected baristas, but go off, Queen.

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Like, taxi drivers can unionize AND Starbucks employees can unionize. One group of workers unionizing is not somehow an attack on every other group of workers.

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First of all, my son has worked for 'bucks for years. That's work. Real work.

Secondly, when did you pick beans, berries, and rake filberts to contribute to your family budget and pay for your school activity fees? As a child. For years. Do you know what that work is like, honey? Do you know what it is like to shove newspaper in the hole in the trailer wall to stay warm?

Of course you don't - you spent your special white privileged male life pushing a little pedal to go fast and another to stop. Whoop de doo.

I am now privileged, yes - thanks to brains, work, and to socialist supports that no longer exist, and a burning desire to never live in poverty again. I do know what hard work is - unlike someone who can't even get it up to get out of his driveway because he doesn't think he can drive without his dick.

Guess what, honey - peeing into bottles is for wimpy suckers who can't get their ass in gear to organize. Baristas are just that fucking much smarter than fools who think that driving a vehicle means that they have a giant prosthetic dick to ram around the world and that being played for a sucker makes them a man rather than a fucking idiot who is just fucking owned.

If you really gave the least bit of a shit about these "poor drivers", you'd be out there organizing them - rather than exploiting them yourself.

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they quit - reason why we have the backlog issue right now is not enough drivers. Not enough drivers due to the turnover. Turnover due to reduced pay, forced free labor, and terrible conditions. The average trucker pay has fallen more than 50% (in today $$) since the 80s ($100k to $40k) - not enough to put up with all that crap. So nice try but I agree, the truckers should unionize as well.

https://www.businessinsider.com/truck-driver-pay-motor-carrier-act-retai...

https://www.businessinsider.com/truck-driver-salary-decrease-pay-cut-2018-9

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I love to see people taking collective action, whether it's activism or neighborhood support groups or unions. Individual action just doesn't cut it sometimes, and it's great to see people group together to work out what's important to them and how they can support each other.

I have no idea about the particular conditions at Starbucks, but if people are going to all the extra effort to form a union... I think we can assume it's probably not a good situation! Well-treated employees don't often have much reason to unionize.

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