(TL;DR at the end)

If you would like to accept the $3 raise and continue working during this time, know that's it's ultimately your choice, but there are factors you should consider that could affect your decision. Just please be aware that in opting to work, you effectively deny yourself a free paycheck in exchange for a bonus that's deceptively very little gain. At the very least, investigate how deeply this can affect you, because catastrophy relief is not only limited to financial support.

This is **NOT** to shame anyone, but to try and ensure everybody can make the most informed decisions about their time and money. A critical mistake partners are making is they only measure the value of their reward and not the value of the task they perform. While a $3 bump might *seem* like a comparatively good option, it's objectively detrimental in value, because your ***time is worth money.***

For the sake of argument, let's pretend for a moment that the $3 thing doesn't exist. Imagine if your current options were to either:

**A)** Work and receive $500.

*or*

**B)** Do *nothing* and receive $500.

Obviously, one group is getting the shaft, and although they are paid the same exact amount in dollars, their pay is NOT the same. This is unpaid labor being exploited, since our pay is already on the table. So now we add the new shiny coat of $3, which baristas are understandably being drawn to, and essentially, Starbucks is now getting away with paying ALL current working employees **$3 an hour** to keep stores open for business. That's... insane.

Now before going further, let me just clarify that corporate's "Option **B**" response (CAT Pay) truly is a wonderful, above and beyond gesture from Starbucks that we *should* be grateful for. They deserve credit for that. The problem, however, is that we're still being encouraged (in some instances, *pressured*) to work, by some higher-ups AND fellow partners, which invites a massive percent of our staff to forfeit their own personal time, manual labor, health & safety, and an entire month of PTO pay for no incentive other than +$3 an hour. Remember, **we are not actively earning our paycheck for working if it's already been issued to all employees for free.**

Regardless of what decision you make, your base pay is yours no matter what. Beyond that, any extra time you put in, you'll be earning **20%** your normal wage for **100%** of your effort. If the "bonus" was presented to you like this, *would you still take the offer?*

No. It's simply not worth it, and it's not even close.

In fact, *do the math for yourself*. If you make a regular $15/hour, for 4 weeks (or 100 hours), you earn $1500 for the month for staying at home. Add that $3, and you make $1800 to NOT stay home, exert your energy and risk yourself and others, all for a whopping $300.

Another thing that's somewhat deceptive is the *length* of time. $3 long-term would be a *fantastic* solution (permanent would be cool too, but baby steps for now), however it's extremely short-term to the point of little significance, where you *really* need to grind to reap the benefits. To be more specific, if you were to work virtually **every single day** from now until April 19th, receiving ZERO days off, maxed at a strenuous 150+ hours for nearly an *entire* month, you'd get... about $500. At ***MOST***. That's it.

I can't stress this enough: it's not a $3 wage increase—this is a $3 per hour **job** (which is illegal in most countries, just sayin').

Again, **those 100+ hours of your life are still a value to you and you should really consider not give them away so freely.** If you're capable, or you love working *that* much, or if you absolutely need an extra $300 by the end of the deadline, then you could argue it's a good deal. But for most of us, work is still work, and COVID-19 is still, well, COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the true value/demand of the work that we put in has skyrocketed considerably, because those of us who continue to work are keeping Starbucks open for business during an economic crisis. We are the reason the company is still profitable, while burning our own costly compensation they've set aside for us, and working for substantially less pay than before. As a businessman, Kevin Johnson must be ecstatic.

Lastly, how can we preach **#staythefuckhome** to our customers when *we won't even do it ourselves?* We're not hypocrites... we might just be a little misguided. Many of us are desperate low-income baristas who will overexert and overexpose ourselves just to scrape by, and this sort of behavior has ultimately clouded our self-worth as assets within the company.

It's time to remind ourselves that the labor/service we provide, our mental and physical sacrifices to this job, our health/safety risks being taken, and our own personal time lost, are all contributions that *weigh something*. Don't discredit your value and your ability to sell that value higher to corporate who's getting it dirt cheap right now. We're settling for $3 rates in leau of a full month's pay, and if you've ever wondered why we don't get more deserving raises and nothing ever changes—this is why.

**TL;DR:** All partners deserve something closer in line to corporate's generous catastrophy relief rather than their disingenuous $3 carrot on a stick.