Sharing on r/UnionizeStarbucks Some good, enlightening articles have been posted there recently. Starbucks management has an advantage in that many of its "partners" are young and financially vulnerable and it's become a haven for the neurodivergent and LGBTQ with it's benefits but also with a culture of kindness among partners that, in my store, is organic and much more about us than the company. Sometimes, and this is true in my store, there is a closeness with the store manager who used to be one of us. They are going to try to capitalize on this to their benefit even though they hardly create it, save for the health care benefits for LGBTQ partners. Edited for grammar

Three stores in Buffalo NY have petitioned for a union vote, and Starbucks is doing everything in their power to keep it from happening.

I was part of a firing spree a few months ago, because our store got so far out of store standards that our DM had to step in (obviously, my manager is at fault for not keeping up on store standards and ensuring we all knew how it worked - extremely hands off manager who made us figure things out for ourselves, would not answer the phone if a new SSV had issues with their first close.. or if the store had issues we needed help on).

I got swept up in it and was fired over something I could have just been written up for. I was one of the store's best people. My last two shifts were 5:30-4:30 (yes - 5:30 open to 4:30 in the afternoon) which I agreed to do because we were so badly out of people and no one else could help.. then I had a day off, came in for my next shift and got fired.

I was not written up or given a chance to show that the one time issue that happened was not my character, because it was not reflective of my regular work ethic and my kindness to others on the job. If I had a union to back me, it would have been way more hard to fire me. There would have had to be a real investigation. Baristas now NEED to talk to union organizers. You can get fired over petty things and your job security is as delicate as anywhere else.

I think you'll find the vast majority of Starbucks workers who aren't wearing rose-colored glasses are pro-union, especially when they realize how important to your safety and well-being a union can be.

For the most part, Starbucks prefers to hire high school and college students who will age out in a couple years. They don't really care if you don't have a work ethic because they think that's you taking things too seriously and they don't like that. They want you to be so friendly with the customers that they feel like they're part of the family, but they also want you to get the drink out in an unacceptably short amount of time.

They pay "OK" now that they've raised the minimum wage to what? $12/hour? It's not amazing, but it's certainly better than when I first started at $9.18. When I left as a shift I was making $12.40.

They do have great benefits, which I think is a smokescreen for their treatment of the barista in general. Like "Oh we hear you're struggling with your mental health. Here's a free subscription to Headspace. It won't actually do anything to help with your mental health, but it's a benefit. See? We care!" Meanwhile they don't actually fix the real crux of the problem: The customer is so wretched to the barista all the time that it's impossible to separate yourself from the vitriol you're constantly given from across the counter. And there's absolutely nothing you're allowed to do about it.

Corporate is currently doing its damndest to tell the partners in Buffalo how awful unions are for everyone involved and it's absolutely disgusting. They're hyperbolic in their content, their rhetoric is flat out wrong sometimes and it's just so misleading, but they're talking to impressionable kids who don't know the true nature and support system they're eligible for with a union.

On top of that, Corporate closed one of the stores that initially requested to unionize, under the guise of transitioning that store into a "Training" store. This allows corporate to feed all their anti-union BS to the green beans so they can go to the other stores when they're BARELY trained (they're not even receiving full training at those stores) and spread the anti-union rhetoric they heard from their original store. They've also sent all the baristas from this store and another that they've closed for "remodeling" (which has taken about 6 weeks now...) to other stores, effectively splitting the baristas all up so they can't talk about their plans, they can't talk to other baristas about it and they can't collectively organize properly.

Finally, corporate has petitioned the labor board to include all 20 stores in the Buffalo area to be part of the vote. Their attempt here is clear: muddy the waters with so many new hires and additional baristas who don't know enough about the union to the point where they don't pass the vote.

I am rooting for and supporting the baristas of Buffalo, and I hope it works. They would be a beacon of hope to the other 8000 stores in the US to unionize and show Corporate who really makes Starbucks work.

Just want to mention that turnover rate isn't only employees quitting. (I mean, I know that people know that, but I just want to point out that sometimes people lose their jobs \*really\* unfairly, that they don't just actively decide they want to quit because they don't like working for Starbucks.) Besides the fact that sometimes people get fired, and of course sometimes they deserve it, sometimes we're forced out because we're told to work while sick and we don't want to or can't (this is a story I heard from a pregnant employee yesterday on Reddit), sometimes we quit because we're getting bullied \[by (a) coworker(s) and/or by customer(s)\] and no one in management cares and we just don't want to be bullied anymore, or we get stressed out and/or get mentally ill and tell our manager we want to quit and the manager is more than happy to immediately start the resignation process for some reason which is not possible to stop once started.