Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz's fight to stop a union uprising
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
why do starbucks workers want to unionize? do they feel underpaid/overworked? are they mad the company earns billions in profit (do they?) and they only make $15-18/hr + some paid tuition perk/benefit/or whatever?
what could starbucks give these workers to not want to unionize? $25/hr? breaks every 15 minutes? what is the union promising to negotiate for the workers that they don’t currently have now?
https://sbworkersunited.org/new-page-2
I’m unsure if your comment is genuinely curious; I’ve tried to assume positive intent. Unions are the only way for workers to get purchase against abusive, unchecked capitalism.
(disclosure: I have provided financial and technical support)
Edit: @savanaly
The author of the comment I replied to has a most recent Ask HN asking why not smaller government and more privatization. Their comment language and format, when viewed for only a moment, is easy to distill as not genuinely curious, but as condescending: “what could these workers possibly ask for that they’d deserve from Starbucks?”
I’m happy to act as Google and stick the result in a reply for them (this is what they’re asking for), but I’m also going to politely call out their disingenuous behavior.
If unions hadn't seized political power to grant themselves unjust power these leeches, which is what they undoubtedly are, would be where they deserve, fired.
They are suppliers of labor, and should be treated like any other supplier of any other good or service, rather than being privileged by the force of law.
Not even close. Workers have rights, among them the freedom of association up to and including forming associations centered around collective bargaining for better wages and working conditions.
This part of your comment is unnecessary and degrades the discussion. The first half was helpful.
If you were actually curious, you’d read the article, which goes into a lot of detail about the unsafe work conditions, the equipment breakdowns, the unstable hours, the student debt making the unstable hours even more precarious, and so on.
Also read the 2 links provided above, because I was interested. On the second page 'what will the union do" the answer is 'its up to us', so I tend to agree, it's not clear what they are asking for yet.
Unions started for factory workers and farm workers too when they had no rights. It’s entirely unnecessary and disruptive now to rely on unions that simply use an artifact of the past to bully employers and reduce productivity.
In America, we have monetary as well as legal safety nets. Unions are used as political means to create vote banks in our current times. I think if politicians wants to mobilize voters to suit their own agenda, they should do it on their own time and on their own dime.
Also: Union pension funds are humongous and public sector and govt employees pension funds are the main reason why we have pension fund liabilities and the some state’s economy gets manipulated.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing-strategy/090...
The California teachers Union is the most powerful union and voting block followed by correction officers union. The amount of political power they wield is often hidden from most people esp those who frequent places like HN. Tech workers Union and Starbucks unions make no sense. A powerful union needs hundreds of thousands of members. And billions of dollars. If tech workers and Starbucks employees Unionise, the entire economy of the USA would crumble and collapse simply from the macro economic impact.
Not to mention their power over how our cities are run. Case in point, why can’t we build modular homes quickly in San Francisco so there is more housing and affordable ones at that. Unions oppose it. And people end up talking and fighting about NIMBYs and prop 13 by brainwashing kids in public schools(unionized teachers) and colleges(again unionized work force in state univs).
Some little squirt still in high school will spout off about NIMBYs and I want to know where they got it from…instead of availing an education, we have an uneducated public school trained political mob. Kids just out of school would speak about Prop 13 and I am like..dude, pay your bills and your taxes. I mean..get a job first before you want to get grandma to sell her home to build your ‘walkable city’.
https://norcalapa.org/2020/12/san-francisco-trade-unions-at-...
Most importantly: The amount of meddling and damage that this has caused our education sector is irreparable and irreversible. We have an entire generation of politically uneducated ignorant gaslit and easily manipulated youth because of the agenda driven public education they recd from our hard earned tax dollars. Worst investment ever.
These youngsters that are the products of a useless public education system wanting to form unions while working in airconditioned work spaces are simply reflecting their education. Rebels without a cause probably never saw the James Dean movie.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebel_Without_a_Cause
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/558095/facts-about-rebel...
Unions are outdated. The law is universal for all in the USA..and it is a superior and effective system because it protects everyone from workers to employees to immigrants rights to undocumented workers. We should work on the law of the land and not on divisive pseudo political outfits like unions.
I can’t tell if you are advocating for updating labor laws instead of relying on unions to influence individual employers. If that’s the case - that’s a strong argument.
Since forcing stronger labor protections at the Federal or even State level takes a very long time and is usually counter-acted by extremely powerful corporate lobbying and propaganda (e.g. Uber), unions offer a more immediate and flexible alternative.
Compared to most European countries, labor laws and benefits in the US are a joke. Unions fought for improving labor condition in Europe, and will hopefully fight for the same level of improvement in the US. Peeing into a bottle should not be OK at an Amazon warehouse, maternity leave should not be an optional benefit, “at-will” employment should not be the standard, etc etc
America is America. We will have to do what’s best for us. Constant and random comparisons with other countries picked for simply beating down America isn’t helpful.
European unemployment rates are much higher..at least 50% more..than American unemployment rates. There has been no relative increase in wages in Europe whereas it has been steadily increasing in America leading to better quality of life index.
There is no comprehensive Europe vs USA comparison but this is a good read of how they dealt with the pandemic(most of the countries mentioned have less than 1/4 population of US)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/pandemic-shows-contra...
There is no way to compare Europe to America but it serves better to compare America to China or India as USA is the third most populous country in the world after the other two.
Comparing America to 5 million peopled NZ and 60 million peopled France is an entirely useless exercise. Unless the purpose of the comparison is to simply pit western countries with a majority white population with other countries with a white majority…therefore ignoring comparable countries from the east. And that’s is frankly Racist.
China is more comparable to USA when it comes to economy than any other European country. But they are Asian, so it doesn’t count seems to be your stance.
In the context of this discussion (unions) and in practical terms, US is culturally and historically much closer to Europe than it is to China.
Finally, I don't think I will ever get used to Americans obsessing over racism. Calm down.
https://georank.org/economy/germany/united-states (3.9T vs 20.5T)
https://georank.org/economy/china/united-states (13.6T vs 20.5T)
Also your original comment compared ‘Europe’ and not Germany or a specific country. The population of ‘Europe’ is roughly twice that of America.
Also: [..]The European Union's GDP was estimated to be around $17.9 trillion (nominal) in 2020, representing around one sixth of the global economy.[..]
Most of the tech sector relies on immigrant talent from places like India even though most stay on work visas without ever getting to enjoy the benefits they paid into the system.
If America were to follow European standards, then you’d think we’d be importing or outsourcing European labour. Oh wait! We don’t do that!
At least, we will stay warm this winter. And maybe save the world with our evil military when beckoned.
Racism exists. In every part of the world. Including HN. I would recommend that you not stay calm about it. Maybe you have the luxury of not caring if you are discriminated against, but many of us don’t have that privilege. Take care. I don’t enjoy these online ping pong matches unless you are consistent with your data.
Yes, GDP of China is closer to GDP of US. However, I would argue that GDP per capita is more important in this discussion. GDP per capita of Germany is closer to US than China is. After all, we are discussing improving labor rights and higher GDP per capita is associated with a higher standard of living and, therefore, better working conditions and benefits.
> Also your original comment compared ‘Europe’ and not Germany or a specific country.
That was you who switched from Europe to individual countries ("Comparing America to 5 million peopled NZ and 60 million peopled France is an entirely useless exercise."), so my comparison to Germany is based on that.
> If America were to follow European standards, then you’d think we’d be importing or outsourcing European labor. Oh wait! We don’t do that!
Right. We need the unions because labor laws are outdated and we need to improve them. Similar to how European labor unions fought for the rights of workers in Europe. The fact that US outsources labor to lower standard countries is not as amazing as you might think it is.
> At least, we will stay warm this winter. And maybe save the world with our evil military when beckoned.
You are really jumping all over the place. Unions, racism, war - if you don't like "online ping pong matches" then please at least keep your comments more on-topic.
> Racism exists. In every part of the world. Including HN.
This is such a pointless virtue signaling. Let me try to play this game...
Comparing America to 1.4 billion peopled China and 1.38 billion peopled India is an entirely useless exercise. Unless the purpose of the comparison is to simply pit countries with a majority male government with other countries with a male government… therefore ignoring comparable countries from Europe that are led by women. And that’s is frankly Sexist.
Sexism exists. In every part of the world. I would recommend that you not stay calm about it. Maybe you have the luxury of not caring if you are discriminated against, but many of us don’t have that privilege.
Really contributing to the discussion, right?