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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: Starbucks workers go on strike!
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Peter Berrett
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 602
From: Victoria, Australia
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted 11-24-2005 04:06 AM
From
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3488833a11,00.html
(see below)
At the prices Starbucks charges I think they can afford to pay these guys more than $NZ10 an hour. Viva la revolution.
cheers Peter
World first for Starbucks as staff at 10 cafes strike
24 November 2005
A small-scale "symbolic" strike at Starbucks coffee store on Auckland's Karangahape Rd today heated up when workers at nine other stores spontaneously joined the picket line.
The strike - which the union claims is a world first for the multinational company - was organised as part of the Unite union's SuperSizeMyPay.Com campaign to boost public awareness of the plight of low paid fastfood industry workers.
Union coordinator Simon Oosterman said he was "absolutely disgusted" at the company's heavy-handed reaction to what was legal industrial action.
"They actually threatened to fire any worker who was not back at work within an hour, which is just an unacceptable bullying tactic," he told NZPA.
"It was supposed to be a small symbolic strike in the heart of Auckland's cafe counter-culture.
"But what happened was, the company paid managers from around the city to do the work of the striking workers.
"When other employees got to hear about this, the text messages went all over the city, and we ended up with about 200 workers from 10 different Starbucks outlets joining us."
AdvertisementAdvertisementThe union served free Fair Trade coffee to demonstrators and passersby.
But the party atmosphere was ruined by the reaction of management, Mr Oosterman said.
The starting wage at Starbucks was $10 an hour - 50 cents above the minimum wage - but the Unite workers union wanted it lifted to $12, Mr Oosterman said.
He said Australian Starbucks workers earned about $5 an hour more than their New Zealand counterparts.
Giving secure hours and other minimum entitlements were other campaign goals.
Mr Oosterman said Unite had been in negotiations for several months with Restaurant Brands, which owns Starbucks, KFC and Pizza Hut in New Zealand.
"Just because there are others that treat their workers more badly, that doesn't mean it's good enough.
"These are companies that are making huge profits by exploiting the most vulnerable in our society: mainly women, Pacific Islanders, Maori, students and young people, and they are being subsidised by the taxpayer.
"Most of these workers are on family benefits and other Government handouts because they simply cannot survive on what they earn."
He said the casualisation of the workforce (fastfood outlets in New Zealand have a 70 per cent turnover), had traditionally made these industries very hard to organise.
Internationally, Starbucks has only 300 union members out of 80,000 workers globally. One third of the union members are in New Zealand.
"There has been very little unionisation, these workers cannot afford to go on strike for long periods.
"I am blown away by the courage of these people in doing what they have done in standing up to a huge multi-national corporation."
The union will be campaigning outside fastfood outlets in Queen St during the Santa Parade, and will also be maintaining a presence at the Grey Lynn Festival to encourage community support.
Green Party MP Sue Bradford, a long-time advocate for low-income workers, said she supported Unite's campaign for a higher minimum wage and better conditions for all workers.
"Starbucks workers are typical of those who have been left to languish in the low wage sector of the economy," she said in a statement.
"All workers in New Zealand, including those aged 16 and 17, should be getting $12 an hour as an absolute minimum.
"Taxpayers should not be subsidising employers through Working for Families and the Accommodation Supplement.
"Employers should pay enough for their workers to live on and not leave it to the Government to make up the difference."
She said workers in the fastfood industry where "particularly vulnerable", as they had little or no job security.
"These workers deserve significant wage increases, rather than the taxpayer subsidies offered to some by Labour.
While the Government had promised to raise the minimum wage, three years was too long to wait, she said.
The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) is also putting its weight behind the campaign.
CTU president Ross Wilson said New Zealand was in the grip of "a low wage crisis", and the $12 per hour wage claim was "clearly reasonable".
"Workers in the fast food industry are often on, or close to, minimum wage levels.
"Workers deserve a fair share of corporate profits, and a lift in the minimum wage to $12 an hour and the removal of youth rates will make a real difference to the incomes of these workers."
Restaurant Brands spokesman Alan Brookbanks said on Tuesday the company was "disappointed" by the union's action when negotiations had been going on some time.
He was unavailable for comment yesterday.
Restaurant Brands said it was "surprised and disappointed" that the Unite Union targeted its coffee stores to launch a campaign aimed at raising the minimum wage.
"We have an excellent relationship with our partners (staff) and respect their rights to belong to the union - it's a personal choice," said Restaurant Brands chief executive Vicki Salmon.
"We pay above the minimum wage and in addition to the higher pay rate, Starbucks and Restaurant Brands offers well respected staff training programmes, a strong career path to management positions and flexible work hours for those that want them."
She said she believed "only a handful" of Starbucks' 7000 staff were involved in the rally.
In response to the union's claims that some striking staff members were threatened with losing their jobs, a Starbucks spokeswoman said this allegation was "completely inaccurate".
"Starbucks respects their staff's rights to belong to the union and bullying is not an approach they would take with their staff," she said.
While some staff had been told that they had to advise their managers if they intended to take part in the strike, it was not true that people had been told they would be fired if they were absent for more than an hour, she told NZPA.
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Dave Williams
Wet nipple scene
Posts: 1836
From: Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 11-24-2005 04:48 AM
No offence here, but when the guy pouring my coffee thinks he deserves to make more money than I make as a financial analyst, it's time for a reality check.
I am unsure about how US dollars translate into your currency, but our minimum wage is under six dollars an hour. No where livable, and our government allows entitlements as well. This is the problem, people think they are entitled to stuff, you know, because.
Even here in the states, Fast food is costly enough as it is, and I have no intention no matter where I go in this world of putting a Hummer in the driveway of every soda jerk on the planet, when I cannot afford one myself. I know you cannot afford a hummer on ten dollars an hour, but to think that anyone is deserving of special consideration for pouring my coffee. Sure, if it will keep you from spitting in it! Hell for the price, I will make it myself, and use my own spit.
I pay high prices for food at a restaraunt, where I sit down dressed in a suit or a tux, and am served by someone dressed as well as I am, treats me with the kind of respect I am paying for, and my meal tastes like it was cooked by god himself!
Fast food workers want more money? Great!!! Just don't expect the consumer to be even remotely concerned. When a burger costs seven dollars US at the drive through, there is no drive through. Coffee at starbucks is costly enough. The company has a right and a responsibilities to its shareholders to drive a return, so the higher pay would be passed on to each cup of coffee. Everyone ready for nine, ten, twenty dollar coffee???
Ciao
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 11-24-2005 11:37 AM
quote: Dave Williams
No offence here, but when the guy pouring my coffee thinks he deserves to make more money than I make as a financial analyst, it's time for a reality check.
I don't know about other parts of the world, but the United States has some very perverted economic values floating around in the top tier and bottom tier income brackets.
People who drive Hummers? They sure as hell are NOT any fast food workers. I don't mind any snide remarks against Hummer drivers, but let's get the damned income group right. The people I know who drive Hummers are real estate guys, people with oil field interests, some doctors and a lawyer or two. $6 or $10 an hour. No. Try $100 per hour and up. Some of these guys bitch about "socialism" in America and doing what they can to keep the minimum wage from rising at all. Can't have that cutting into their ability to pay those $5000 per month country club fees, right? This is the same group that loves seeing Tiger Woods in those commercials for that firm that ships jobs overseas to slave labor markets by the thousands.
Perhaps some guy who owns a number of restaurants might be able to afford to drive around in a $55,000 SUV and live in a $200,000 home but it sure as hell is not an "employee."
At the bottom end of the income scale we have another set of nonsense values. It's all that "I wanna roll like 50 cent and be a gangsta and get high all the time and only show up for work when I feel like it" bullshit. There's an endless number of white kids around my area with that stupidity floating around in their skulls.
Both groups, the greedy assholes and the lazy druggie gangsta wannabes, are screwing up the back-bone of this country: small business.
I work for a small business of around 20 employees. We certainly pay well above minimum wage. That's because we want the jobs to be at least a bit competitive.
Our costs for materials, fuel, various pieces of hardware have gone up and up and up. We constantly have to monitor the prices of steel, plastic and more for all the volatility in the market. Some of that's due to some corporate guys wanting to eek out those extra few percentage points on that next quarterly report. So let's stick small business people in America with a nice price hike. The health care industrial complex in the United States is more guilty of punishing American small business than any other industry.
With higher costs of doing business, we need to be able to do more. But it's damned hard to find good employees!
If you've got your shit together, American business culture now says you are a complete idiot and socialist scumbag if you work for someone else. So the people who are productive are constantly moving around trying to start their own businesses instead of joining up with someone else and getting a real team going.
When we need to hire new employees, we probably get 1 or 2 good candidates out of maybe 50 or more who apply. So many have felony convictions, drug offences and other things that just knock them right out of consideration.
Because of changing DOT rules, we're probably going to have to start a company wide drug testing program. We need as many employees as possible carrying CDL licenses so they can drive crane and service trucks. But we're honestly worried that once we enact the company wide program, we could wind up losing a few metal workers in the shop during the process. That's all thanks to the low end of our perverted culture relentlessly promoting drug use.
quote: Dave Williams
Fast food workers want more money? Great!!! Just don't expect the consumer to be even remotely concerned.
No one else has said it, but I'll point out the fact: food service jobs are SHIT. You could not pay me enough to do one of those thankless jobs. They're awful.
I worked a couple of those jobs when I was in high school and hated them with a purple passion. They're not easy jobs to do either. At Wendys, I had the duty of hauling grease buckets out from under the grill out to these big oil drums in the back. I'd have lift those heavy bastards up and pour them into the drums. The stink was unbearable. Lifting the lid on one of those barrels often brought up the gag reflex -or I just puked outright. It was never a neat job either. I'd always come back inside with some of that shit-stinking grease poured on the front of my clothes.
I find it a lot easier to sit behind a desk, do computer graphics work and above all other things stay clean. I remember those fast food days when the first thing I had to do when getting home was taking a shower.
Fast food employees, movie theater employees and more very often and very wrongfully get the blame whenever a company raises the price of their products. "Oh those lazy fast food workers just want more money," will often be the comment if the price of a Big Mac goes up. No one ever thinks that maybe the CEO wants to buy out some supplier, or a new GulfStream jet or some other shit like that.
For example, we have seen movie ticket prices increase over the years. But minimum wage has been stuck around the same level for a long time. And I know a lot of movie theater workers are not making any better than minimum wage. Even some assistant managers are making only 25 or 50 cents an hour above it. Yet, you can count on many customers blaming the employees there in the lobby for any ticket price or concession price increases.
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 11-25-2005 08:07 PM
I operate one 3-screen drive-in theatre. In the big picture it's no big deal, but it's the foundation upon which my wife and I have raised 3 daughters and kept ourselves in hamburger.
As is common in our part of the country, our theatre is open a little over half the year. The concession operation IS fast food... or as some company is advertising these days, great food served quickly.
My place is a career for me, a work ethics training ground for my kids, the financial support structure for their education, and potentially, a career opportunity for any of them that might choose to succeed my wife and me down the road.
So how do I fit in the rest of the staff, all of whom start at a little over minimum wage (with small annual increases for those who come back), and who have to find other things to do after the end of September?
I tell them right up front that I recognize the place as an entry level opportunity for young people just entering the workplace, and an additional income for more experienced people looking to make an extra buck with their spare time. It's a fun place to work. At times, it can be very demanding. Operating it at its busiest depends on teamwork, learned over the slower weeks at the beginning of the season. There's plenty of potential to learn nearly all the basics of customer service, cash handling, kitchen operations and field security. Providing that training is my job. I ask my employees to show up on time, be ready to work, have an open mind toward learning the job the way I need it done and maintain a positive outlook toward the time they're here. With a few rules applied, they get to bring their family and friends to the movies, pass along some concession discounts and "show off" their job and how they fit into the place. There IS value in that, which has to be added to what they make in cash.
Recognizing that none of them will pay their rent, buy their cars, feed their families or pay their college tuition totally on what they make here, I tell them I expect they may eventualy take what they learn from this place and use it to move to a better job. In return for reasonable notice (which is not required in my state) and applying themselves to the job as we ask while they're here, I tell them I'll give them one of the best references they'll ever get when they apply for their new job, and I give them a phone number to pass along if necessary.
In the end, I get probably the same ratio of idiots to "jewel in the haystack" prospects. I feel no remourse when sending the idiots down the road. I did lay out the program up front, after all. The ones who stick with it get a basic background in several disciplines, they get paid for it, they learn work ethics and skills that can serve them well throughout their lives, most of them have a hell of a good time, and some of them become part of a family that's been here for 20 years.
Sometimes you have to look past just the hourly wage.
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