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)

>Tips are the opposite of that

Since when? You're just making up arbitrary nonsense. Every business transaction with a tip is negotiated rate + tip.

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 don't know labor law, but if you're right, it's completely ridiculous. I know for a fact that union employees are allowed to receive benefits and pay increases that non-union employees don't get. If the other side of the coin is illegal, then the law is insane.

Specifically because it's a union-busting tactic, employers cannot give benefits to non-union employees that are not at least offered to union employees.

Remember, the employer/employee relationship is an inherently unequal one. The freedom of the employer to do certain things is curtailed for the common good, in exchange for substantial power and economic advantages.

Having lawyers to bring about lawsuits is the leverage.

I'm really just shocked by this sentiment that being in a union somehow ops you into to getting illegally screwed around.