Posted on 07/03/2016 4:15:00 AM PDT by HomerBohn
ZeroHedge reminds us that a year ago, owner and CEO of Seattle-based Starbucks, Howard Schultz, piously told CNN that he supported raising the minimum wage to $15/hour “across the country,” but warned that “it will be very difficult for small business in the country at a $15 level to pay those kinds of wages.” Then Schultz grandly announced that Starbucks will lead the way by raising the wages of its employees “way above the minimum wage”:
“For Starbucks come January 1 we are taking wages up across the country and we will pay above the minimum wage in every state we operate. Starbucks is way above the minimum wage. I have always looked at total compensation. I have always believed that our success as a company is best shared.“
Note that a worker’s total compensation is a function of hourly wages and total number of hours worked.
Fast forward a year . . . .
Lisa Baertlein reports for Reuters, June 30, 2016, that Starbucks, the world’s biggest coffee chain that employs 160,000 people in the United States, is accused by an online petition, signed by more than 9,000 people, of “extreme” cutbacks in work hours at its U.S. cafes, which hurt both employee morale and customer service.
In other words, Starbucks compensated for raising its employees’ wages to “way above minimum wage” by reducing its workers’ hours, so as to maintain its profitability.
According to Jaime Prater, a Southern California barista and the online petition’s creator, some 7,000 signers of the petition described themselves as Starbuck employees.
Prater said “The labor situation has gone from tight to infuriating.” The manager of a central California Starbucks who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal, told Reuters that the store’s work force has shrunk by about 10%, even though sales are up.
Similar complaints were made by many signers of the online petition:
Signer Aaron I. wrote: “No matter what we do to save on labor at my store, the system tells us EVERY SINGLE DAY that we are at least 8 hours over in labor for the day and have to cut even more.”
Leslie S, a self-described shift manager, wrote: “We’re suffering, & so are our customers. It’s not working.”
Makenna S, a shift supervisor, wrote: “Mobile orders have increased sales and created more need for labor, yet the company is cutting labor.”
While its employees contend with reduced work hours and, therefore, pay, Starbucks’ established cafes in U.S.-dominated Americas region is enjoying increased sales of:
9% sales increase in the first quarter of this year,
7% increase in the second quarter, and
an expected 6.2% increase for the current quarter, according to Consensus Metrix.
Howard Penney, an analyst at Hedgeye Risk Management who follows Starbucks, observed, “They’ve been posting industry-leading same-store sales growth for the last five years while reducing labor costs – a trend that can’t continue.”
According to Wikipedia, Starbucks’ CEO Howard D. Schultz “was born to a Jewish family on July 19, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York.” He is pro-gun control and same-sex marriage. In 2012, Forbes magazine ranked Schultz as the 354th richest person in the United States, with a net worth of $1.5 billion.
Howard Schultz’s name should be listed in dictionaries as a synonym of hypocrisy
Starbucks, or as I euphemistically refer to as ‘Charbucks’, can keep their over-priced burned coffee. Like another poster opined, purchasing higher quality coffee elsewhere and brewing it yourself will result is a far superior cup of coffee at substantial savings. Your tastebuds will thank you.
Back to the subject at hand, though, Starbucks is quite the hypocrite. Lobby for a higher, unsubstainable wage, and then turn around and cut staff and hours. All the while, expecting the same level of, if not higher, productivity. Yep, sounds like liberal ‘logic’, aka ‘magical thinking’. Stupid is as stupid does.
Someone please explain to me what a “barista” is? Is it someone who just pours coffee or someone with the skills to add cream & sugar and put cream cheese on a bagel?
Used to be able to figure about 1/3 again as much of salary for benefits, taxes, tuition, relo, etc.
Doesn’t include allocated overhead for legal, accountants, etc. to cover it all.
I just got one free with my morning gas fill up...
Otherwise I think its .49...
You are paying to much ;)
If people were thinking straight Starbucks would not exist! They sell a sorry excuse for coffee at champagne prices.
Isn’t he the CEO who said: “If you believe in traditional marriage, we don’t want your business?”
“Starbucks charges $6 for a cup of coffee”
And they talk about Starbucks as if it drives our economy. Give me Dunkin Donuts any day.
[Sorry...I just like the “burnt” flavor.]
No problem as long as you don’t try to convince us it’s a “special blend.” This man perfectly expresses my view of Starbucks, starting at 2:17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Mjnzqi5gs
But most of them already have multiple Masters' Degrees in Basket Weaving, Pottery Spinning, Stupid Studies, Political Science, Art History, Socialist Nonsense, Puppetry and Feminazism.
I mean; how educated do you want them to be?
Besides, they already have $100k+ in student loans that they want the taxpayers to eat for them.
C'mon. Be real.
Awful, awful coffee.
Community Coffee can’t be beat.
I bet you didn’t know that the free market enables you to shop elsewhere.
I bet you didn’t know that the free market enables you to shop elsewhere.
Barista comes from the Latin words....I have an art history/womens studies degree and this is the only job I am qualified for.
I still have a Starbucks gift card tucked away from two years ago. The person who gave it to me was thoughtless in giving me something I normally wouldn’t use.
“This is real. People just don’t want to believe it.”
Anyone who cannot understand that people demand less of something when the price goes up and more when the price goes down are hopelessly stupid. Water is a prime example, if water rates are low enough people will water large lawns, gardens etc. but if rates go high enough they will ration every drop, stop taking long showers and take a sponge bath even. I would buy TWO new F-150 pickup trucks tomorrow if the price dropped to one thousand each but as it is I don’t expect to ever own another NEW vehicle.
In all fairness, this isn’t hypocrisy unless ahead of time he said we will raise their minimum wage to $15/hr *and* not fire anyone. Otherwise it is just economics and math.
If a person has only $20 in their pocket, with which they intend to buy something worth $20, including tax, but they stop off at Starbucks to buy a $5 cup of coffee flavored liquid sugar, they will no longer have enough money to make their $20 purchase.
Hypocrisy isn’t the problem here. Piss Poor Prior Planning (PPPP, the four P’s) is the problem. Unless he wanted an excuse to fire employees during a sales upturn, which makes no sense.
Alternatively, by cutting their hours, many more employees will not get employer paid Obamacare. And that is real money.
No, it isn't. The administrative cost of having a person as an employee is called overhead, not "total compensation."
An employee's total compensation includes all of the employee's wages plus any other benefits or payments above and beyond the base payroll salary that the company pays for that employee only. In addition to a base salary, total compensation can include the following:
1. medical insurance
2. 401(k) matching contributions
3. other insurance coverage (disability, life insurance, etc.) that the company may provide
4. education reimbursement
5. commuting expense reimbursement
>All liberals need to go back to school to study math and economics. And told there are no money trees then left to cry. Reality and truth; neither live in them.
Go back? Aside from (some) math, there was little else to instill, let alone finances and economics, to the incarcerated...I mean, pupils.
IMO, we are finally seeing the ‘end-want’ of 100yrs of Socialist/Liberal take-over of education: reaction of emotion, no (fore)thought nor extrapolation of ideas.
IOW: Emotion and Liberalism as dogma with no ability, or want, to counter the brain-washing.
For decades figure 1.97 times wages for total compensation
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