Posted on 12/25/2024 1:51:41 AM PST by Libloather
The union representing Starbucks baristas said on Tuesday that a strike against the java giant has expanded to more than 300 locations — with about 10,000 coffeehouse workers walking off the job on Christmas Eve.
Baristas in more than 50 cities including New York, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Seattle and Chicago have walked the picket line since Friday demanding better wages and work conditions.
The extent to which the work stoppage has damaged Starbucks business is unclear.
According to company filings cited by the New York Times, a typical company-owned Starbucks location in the United States generates anywhere between $4,000 and $8,000 during a normal business day.
That number is even higher during the holiday season, according to the Times.
The strike is scheduled to end on Tuesday and workers are due to report to their stores on Christmas Day.
Earlier this week, Starbucks said the disruptions from the strike had no significant impact on its operations because only a small handful of US stores have been impacted.
The Post has sought comment from Starbucks and the union.
Starbucks Workers United, the union which launched the strike, represents employees at more than 500 company-owned stores — which is around 5% of the total number of stores being operated in the US.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Robots!
Years ago, fast food places talked about a hamburger machine that could pump out hundreds of burgers an hour, as a reaction to the insane minimum wage increases. I’m sure an entrepreneur and venture capitalist could create the same for the coffee business.
“IM sure theres a way to make coffee without.. Keurig has no comment. Coffeemate has no comment.. and soy Cows take the holiday off.
There are no other opportunities for those with college degrees in art history, gender studies, and critical race theory.
Better working conditions?
Yes, they should automate the coffee mines so the Baristas can lay down their pickaxes.
I’ve never had a Starbucks coffee or anything else there and it’s not as though I don’t know what I’m missing out on except for paying too much for too little.
(Um, like a $10 Mr. Coffee maker will give you hot coffee for pennies a cup. Damn, $200,000 Harvard education and you can't even figure that out?)
Please don’t include Art History along with those other idiotic degrees. We have a long history of solid research, even if pretty boring.
My professor spent years of his life reading the payroll records of a stone quarry to identify which stones went to which sculptors to identify the creators of the statuary on the outside walls of a church. Swore I’d never do such boring research and went into computer language design. Then spent my retirement identifying the favored sounds of 18th century poets looking at where their tongues moved in their mouths as they recited aloud.
By the way, Art History is one of the favorite majors of the British royal family. Probably because they own so much art.
For millions of Americans, this has led to a new form of wokeness -- a realization that their job prospects and bargaining power have been diminished by open borders and masses of cheap immigrant labor. The result for American citizens is less free time, harder lives, and an erosion of their hopes and dreams.
Voting for Trump, or at least not voting for Harris were signs of rising discontent. Worse will soon unfold for corporate America as aggrieved workers look to unions for help. If that art history degree and 100K in student loans were a mistake, perhaps the Teamsters can make up for it with higher wages at the expense of Starbucks corporate.
The best minds among the hedge fund types, CEOs, and corporate strategists knew this day would come. A decisively large slice of corporate America though took up wokeness as a way to appease the Jacobins long enough to cash out at the top. That approach is at an end.
Soon, like Bezos and Zuckerberg, corporate America will make their way in numbers to Republicans with checkbooks in hand, from Trump to Congress to state legislatures to beg, "Save us! Fooled by the radicals of organized labor, our employees are besieging us!"
Trump and other conservative Republicans graced with strategic sense will then bring up their list of complaints and demands against corporate America and say, "Let's negotiate." Shocked business lobbyists and executives may struggle with their composure but they know that negotiating with the GOP will be easier than trying to make deals with the Teamsters.
I do not wish ill for Starbucks but, as a realist, I know that a Starbucks reeling or ruined by labor strife would drive the point home. In the roundabout way of politics, those pink-haired baristas with cats at home and useless college degrees will help to drive corporate America into Trump's waiting arms.
I bought a decent espresso machine 15 or so years ago. Still going strong today with a few component replacements. I can make a nice latte in much less time than it would take to go to Starbucks, for a fraction of the cost. That machine has paid for itself 10X over. I don’t care about all the stupid over-sugared coffee milkshake monstrosities they sell.
A Starbucks strike affects me not a whit.
Sorry. You are correct. I have a close friend who was an art history major and is a gifted dealer in collectables (including art).
Let em strike worse tasting coffee ever.
Over priced yuppie junk. Anyone with half a brain can make a whole pot of delicious coffee for less than one cup of Starbucks crap.
Have you written any papers and are they available for reading.
Your research sounds interesting
Starbucks is about the experience, not just the coffee.
If it was just about coffee, there are good machines that do the job.
People go to coffee houses to sit, drink good coffee and discuss.
A coffee to go? Then home brewed or McDonald’s or Dunkin is better value, but if you want to sit down and mull with friends, a local coffeehouse or a Starbucks is good.
Let them strike and get a better deal from corporate. Unlike fast food, there there are higher profit margins at Starbucks.
If their strike has financial merit it will work. If it doesn’t, then it fails
generates anywhere between $4,000 and $8,000 during a normal business day.
So, between four and eight coffees?
It’s gonna be funny watching the collapse of Starbucks.
McDonald’s, Starbucks, foodservice jobs in general are not careers. They are starter jobs.
So 10,000 pink/green haired, tattooed, dope smoking trannies with degrees in 14th Century French Art are loose in this country?
The Starbucks that have drive up windows do a booming business in my area, so they are there to get their coffee fix.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.