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Comment by xyzelement | Hacker News Reader

I am not sure I get the logic here. Labor unions create more structure and rigidity in the employer employee relationship, where everything is negotiated rather than ad hoc.

Presumably the employees in unionized stores got some benefits from the union (higher wages, stability? Otherwise what's the point of the union.) So they must already have some baseline they negotiated and have been happy with.

Starbucks is rolling out a different model to it's not structured employee situations, this is both their right since the rigidity of the union isn't there, and perhaps it's needed there more.

As a layperson that "not relying on tips" is a goal that a union should provide (else what's the point?) So it's weird that they now want those too.

Totally get why the union doesn't like it but it's kinda one sided. You are either married or you okay the field.

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The union's goal can be to get to a place where tips are not required in terms of wages, but that doesn't mean they should be required to abstain from receiving tips until they get there.

And doubly so when in the midst of doing all this, Starbucks moves up the wages of their workers, but much less so if you're in the union.

i.e. Now you have a situation where unionized workers are being paid less than non-unionized workers, AND being denied access to tips.

I'm not sure how you can look at that scenario and say "I don't understand the union's grievance". I think it's more than "doesn't like it". Which is why the NLRB sided with them on all points of the issue. Starbucks is only union-hostile and petty about it too - around here they also got in trouble for removing padded foam mats behind counters (for reducing fatigue/foot pain), but only from the unionizing stores, and then tried to claim it was done for "safety" reasons (and had no real answer why, if so, it wasn't being done across the board).

How can you see it as anything but targeted attacks? You don't just roll out a change like this and forget to negotiate with the union. Adding a tip line is something unions are very familiar with and would not object to. SB wanted it this way.

>As a layperson that "not relying on tips" is a goal [...] So it's weird that they now want those too.

The goal is to benefit the worker. Tips are culturally embedded and a significant amount of money. It's weird to think the union wouldn't want that for their members. Would guaranteed higher pay be better? Yes. Is that an actual either/or option? No.

>Totally get why the union doesn't like it but it's kinda one sided. You are either married or you okay the field.

What does this even mean? What are the arbitrary rules you think should apply? Being in a union shouldn't mean its OK to be screwed with by SB management at every opportunity.

But isn't the point of the union that they negotiate as a group separately from non-union employees? So it sounds like what is going on is if the union gets a better deal, then they're like "see, you should join the union because we get a better deal," but if the union negotiates a worse deal they say "that's not fair, you're screwing over the union."

Just sounds to me like they don't actually have the leverage they promised their members to extract better pay, and are now whining "no fair" for having to sleep in the bed they made.

That sounds exactly right. You can have a fluid or rigid relationship between employees and the company, but it then goes one way.

If employees get "hardcore" about creating limits on how the company can hire/pay/whatever, it obviously changes how the company engages with those employees as well.

To wit, if you force me to sign in blood for everything I have to give you, I am not going to give you anything else.

You're almost there.

This isn't the union failing to negotiate a good deal, or being sticklers about procedure and thus preventing union employees from getting what non-union employees are being given. Starbucks is deliberately using this as a way to sabotage the union, by refusing to even offer them the same terms as non-union employees. This is illegal.

What does it mean to "offer the same terms?" Presumably the unionized folks are getting some compensation benefit compared to non-unionized (otherwise, what's the point?)

Since the terms are already different, how do you compare if the union rate (no CC tips) is better than the non-union rate (with CC tips?)

The raises and tips that Starbucks was giving to the non-union stores, but not offering as options to the unionized stores.

What do you mean by "options". Was there an active negotiating going on at this time (maybe?)

Starbucks did not offer to negotiate these new benefits with the unionized stores. They rolled them out to non-union stores, then made a lot of noise about how they couldn't possibly give them to the union stores, because the union was preventing it—but they didn't actually engage in any negotiations with the union, offer the benefits, or in any other way show good faith.

It is painfully clear that this is a deliberate union-busting tactic on Starbucks' part. The only reason they gave any stores these benefits is in order to make the union look bad.

This is illegal.

I get the "more money is better" concept :) There's also the no free lunch concept.

Chosing to be in the union means you want the negotiated salary, and you want to be shielded from the outcome of your work a bit (we all make the same regardless of how we perform, short of being so bad that you get fired)

The stability of compensation implies... Stability of compensation. You get the negotiated rate.

Tips are the opposite of that. Tips are performance based and someone providing great customer service (individual or on store level) is going to get more. That's not in line with the union mindset so I don't see why that would be expected.

I also don't see why SBUX should go out of its way to benefit the union. The unions explicit mission is to insert itself between SBUX and the employees, where the employee relationship is now more with the union rather than the company. There's no expectation of the company giving the union more power if it doesn't need to.

I guess this case will come down to whether this is really illegal or not. We'll see.

> I also don't see why SBUX should go out of its way to benefit the union. The unions explicit mission is to insert itself between SBUX and the employees, where the employee relationship is now more with the union rather than the company.

I take issue with this framing. This has some implication of a malicious, or rent-seeking, third party, interfering with SBUX and its employees. Except that it's a union -of- employees.

And the union wants a better/equal salary. But SBUX wants to pay a tip-dependent wage and then remove tipping options from those stores. You can't say, objectively, "Well, the union wants everyone paid equally/fairly, and they've got that now, what's the big deal?" when the wages being paid equally/fairly are predicated on tip income.

By your logic, if a restaurant workers union wanted to have everyone on equal wages and remove tipping from the equation, they should be happy to have tips removed and have everyone making $2.13/hr (well, it'd have to be $7.25/hr) because hey, it's equal, and all they need to do now is negotiate that rate up, right?

The issue is framed at the top of the article - SBUX is not removing tipping options, it is not adding them. Meaning whatever the union has negotiated is still in place exactly.

I am not prepared to argue the details of the barista labor market but SBUX has a reputation for taking good care of their employees, compared to other places that hire that type of talent (401k, tuition coverage, etc.) Meaning, it expects employees to work hard/go above and beyond and tries to do the same for them - at least in their own assessment and I bet many employees agree.

The employees who chose to unionize presumably didn't like what the company was offering them on its own and decided to lever up their demands. That changes the relationship from "taking good care of each other" to bounds by rigid rules. Once you bind me by rigid rules, I am not giving you anything extra (if for no other reason as I can use that as leverage in our next negotiation which is what you're forcing me to do)

Starbucks stores only started attempting unionizing in the past year or two, and the first store to unionize did so in Dec 2021. [1]

So this is all pretty brand new. The union, I presume, wants ALL stores to be unionized, and wants ALL stores to have CC tip options, and for ALL stores to have those other union-negotiated benefits.

Rolling out the ability to accept CC tips as a strictly non-union perk is 100% a union-busting power play.

[1] https://www.vox.com/recode/22825850/starbucks-union-first-or...

This is text book retribution for a employees engaging in protected activity: one manager was dumb enough to say it out loud. Tgis kicked this issue out of the legal gray area Starbucks would love to occupy.

Think of it as firing a whistleblower for poor performance: it's never a good look and ought to impose a supersized burden of proof on the employer even in the rare cases where it's true.

There is no need to perform mental gymnastics when Occam's razor perfectly applies.

This is just facilitation of customer tips to employees, not an additional benefit paid to employees by Starbucks.

Why does that matter? It still requires (a) SBUX to do work and (b) has impact on SBUX. What I mean by later : if I am someone who didn't tip before the CC system but now I do because it's easy, my cup of coffee has gone up by a buck.

On the margin at some point it's going to just be the same as a price raise (coffee is 5 bucks rather than 4) which obviously impacts business at least somewhat.

Your logic that the cost of a cup of coffee has effectively gone up by $1 because you have voluntarily given a $1 tip which you didn't but could have given prior is completely illogical.

It's tightly logical but you are failing to follow.

Credit card integration obviously generates more tipping, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it.

This is because once they see the prompt, many people think of the tip as mandatory (vs may not have thought about it) - or they don't have cash but now can tip. A good thing. I always tip well.

Now coffee becomes a thing you tip for, for these people. Totally voluntary.

For those people, this raises the effective price of a cup of coffee.

Getting Starbucks now becomes a costlier habit. At the margins this can drive someone to go elsewhere, skip, etc (basic supply and demand.)

This may not apply to some given individual but across millions of customers over a long time price including tip obviously affects quantity demanded.

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