It’s a licensed kiosk inside a grocery store. We are part of a union that included grocery, retail, and health care workers. They were unionized long before I was hired.

A lot of states are “at will employment “. They can terminate your employment at any time without warning or reason.

They know how much we make. They know we can't afford to go after them if they were to do something illegal.

They'll just say it was for other reasons. Then they will just find someone else to replace us.

Is that dependent on the state?
Just curious. I’m not exactly knowledgeable on laws and didn’t know it was illegal to attempt to unionize. I thought it was in our handbook that we are not allowed to unionize and can be reprimanded for it (I could be wrong about that).

Yeah I live in Texas and the firing laws are very lax you could be fired for almost anything they do not care

How much would union dues be? When would we pay them? Weekly? Monthly? Say it's 200 a month, would that mean a smaller store with 10 employees has to pay more than a store with 20? Would we all be members of said union where our votes count, or just represented by a union? What if not employees feel the same way about a union, what happens then?

A union would create a "us vs. them" mentality. So, who is "us?" The barista and shifts? Do we include our store managers even though they are considered management?

If we get higher pay, would our prices have to increase to match that pay? How would customers feel about that? What if we demand such high wages that we have to fire people? Or stop hiring people? Would that create staffing issues at your store?

What if you start to disagree with what your union is doing? When it comes to promotions or layoffs what do you envision happening? What happens to the individuality that it seems a lot of Starbucks employees enjoy? How will seniority come into play? What if you're a great worker that gets passed up on a promotion to shift to someone else just because they've been with Sbux longer?

A big appeal of unions are the benefits, what benefits of a union do you think we don't already have? PT employees get health insurance, sick time, vacation time etc. But right now it seems like you just want higher wages, understandable, and the feeling of not being forced to work during a pandemic, also understandable. But it doesn't seem like a union is needed for that.

Yes, it does matter that it’s “better than other terrible jobs”. It’s called gratitude. If you change your perspective, your views on Starbucks might alter. I worked at a local cafe for 4 years prior to Starbucks. I made $9.50 an hour (after my “raise” which took 2 years to get), zero benefits, working 50-60 hour some weeks without overtime, and didn’t have any resources for problems in the workplace. So Starbucks is doing wayyyyy more than I would’ve ever asked for. If this company is not doing enough to meet your needs, then find a company that does.

Unions can seek to have healthy relationships with their employers. They can exist not to fight people but to allow employees collective bargaining power so they can work with employers to make the workplace the best it can be. You can ultimately like your job but think it could be better. Unions can be the norm not the exception.

yeah until you grow your union and union membership a condition of employment. At that point the others have NO choice, and that’s why there’s right to work laws. I don’t want a shitty organization adding another tax on my paychecks, stealing my money. Fuck that