This is how it’s always been for the working class…comrade

I’m seriously upset I can’t wear my cloth masks anymore without double masking and muffling my speech, yet all the customers can come in coughing and sneezing all bare-faced. Why are we not closing the cafes like we did last august-December? Or getting hazard pay?

If we do anything we should close the cafes. I’m completely over the arguments about whether or not people need to wear a mask and what constitutes wearing a mask properly. The right mode of action is to just lock them out so there’s no unnecessary confrontation. Things are at least a bit safer when they’re in the drive thru.

union

This is exactly how I feel. We are expected to perform safety, and I do mean PERFORM, for the customers. So they feel comfortable morally coming into the stores. But there is no real safety if employees are being forced to work while sick, being dragged back after too short an isolation, and with the customers not even having to wear masks.

Customers - if you come into a store and the employees are wearing masks, that does not make you safe. The other dozen customers who are not wearing masks can easily get you sick. You wearing a mask protects others from you. You are still susceptible to others, who are not wearing masks, even if you are vaccinated. And so are we.

Back when we were allowed to enforce mask wearing in our store, customers used to look at me with annoyance and confusion and tell me “but there’s no one here but me”. And therein lies the problem- we aren’t people to so many of our customers. You see it in the way we are treated over coffee, and you see it here. We are not people to many of you and we are not people to corporate. It doesn’t matter what happens to us, because someone will replace us. Someone will cover a shift until there’s no one left, and then we will shoulder all of the anger when that happens and stores close. Because we are not people, we are “Starbucks Partners”. They are throwing us at this disease uncaringly until there’s nobody left and only then do they apologize…to the customers, for the inconvenience.

If you are a Starbucks customer, and you value the drink you get every day or every once in a while, and you value the connections with baristas you get to have, please do something about it. Because your coffees are not made by robots, they’re made by people, who get sick, and whose families get sick. I have to consider quarantining at home for a month just to protect my mom from potential infection before a life saving surgery she needs. But I get practically spit at for ME wearing a mask at work. Told its bullshit anyone does. Tell Starbucks corporate and tell other people on social media and in person that you value us, if you do. And you should. Tell them we deserve these protections, and tell them with your money if you have to. But tell them, because they do not care about us. They care about money and about protecting their image.

Thx for the empathy everybody.

What can I do on a logistically practical level? (i.e. tell my SM/DM I'm not coming in because I don't think it's a safe envoirment, or light myself on fire in the lobby, or something.)

Like, based on the communication I read, Sbux has formally acknowledged we are not working in a safe envoirment.

TBH I'm only working so I have health insurance in case I get sick. And now I've been asked to acknowledge and accept that my job has become a mortal exchange.

I'm just so profoundly tired of letting people keep kicking me.

I asked my manager about this before this was released and they said “sanitizing is in the customer support cycle” it is not. And I only know like two of us actually sanitize the cafe. Like we have customers actively coughing in the lobby and I can’t ask them to wear a mask? How is this not considered a threat to staffs health and safety? Like I’m fully vaccinated but I still don’t want the rona!

I’m sorry, I’m in Tucson we are requiring customers to wear masks and they are big maddddd . I hope this changes for you guys.

Does anyone have a screenshot of it? I keep hearing things about it and our store manager was telling us they were gonna send something out but I haven’t received anything I’ve just heard what’s in it and I wanna read it for myself!

y'know, i can think of one *great* way to get them to listen to us... ~~strike~~

We got updated yesterday during a store meeting that vaccinations aren't necessary, and neither is self-isolating if you're vaccinated and catch COVID. If it's *really* bad out there, they'll let us quarantine for just five days before returning to work and rapid tests aren't approved because they pop too many *false positives*. And you'll get paid once per quarter for isolating if you get it.


So what is this saying, exactly? And what does it mean for anyone we work or come into contact with, vaccinated and unvaccinated? It sounds like a load of hogwash.

It’s disgusting. I have three partners on isolation. One who was seriously sick the FIRST time they got COVID and now is scared it’ll be the same again. I’ve got people dropping left and right and me and the other shifts are having to run ourselves ragged and into overtime to compensate. And I’m still expected to have a perfect store and good OTW times. God forbid somebody’s latte is three seconds later because we’re dying.

The city I live in has required masks to be worn by everyone (except babies and toddlers) when working in or entering any building except private residence. The city has empowered the people who work in any establishment to ask a customer to wear a mask. If said person refuses they are asked to leave. If person refuses police are called and if they arrive and person is still there they will be escorted out and receive a $75 ticket for non compliance. Now when I say city it's a small suburban community with no big box stores, very low crime rate and lots of police officers. Like if someone calls the police 5 totally tricked out cop suv will show up.

Organize for workplace democracy by unionizing! Follow @SBWorkersUnited

wow. my store requires customers to wear masks. we are allowed to refuse service if they don’t comply. i’m so sorry you’re going through this. sending love n empathy

Yes. Have felt this from the start, when masks were mandated and we were supposed to not allow people to shop without them, but corporate didn't want us to piss people off either. I work in a SB in a grocery store, and I have felt unappreciated even when we were getting $2 extra in "hero pay" which really meant, "please don't quit for your own health and reduce the number of people working to make us millions!"

i hope you can start a union in your area and bring the health and safety concerns to light and be able to do something about it. a step in the right direction against big corporate america

We are literally expendable, always have been.

Unfortunately starbucks standards are a lot higher than most other service based industries. It won't change where you go. I switched jobs because I thought this one would be safer, but the new rules and how quick things are changing is getting frustrating.

i think ur being a lil dramatic. but customers should be wearing masks

Side note, how'd you get this info? Weekly update?

lmaoo

It would be nice to close cafes but I work in a cafe only store so that would mean no job for me :( so it just sucks

If you can, I really suggest starting to consider unionising your store, it's the only way yall can fight these changes in corporate policy that hurt workers. If its a really serious concern and you wanna cut and run, I left for an indie cafe and obviously not every workplace is the same, but I did find a good little place where we got to vote about being open on holidays and how we responded to COVID. I know it seems scary but there are many way healthier workplaces out there if the siren is just getting too dangerous and toxic.

i get at least 3 very obviously sick people ordering medicine balls every day and THEY don’t have to wear a mask but no, the people who get temp checked every time they clock in have to… makes sense!

Yep. Unionize.

The backlash against masks has led us to this point, where the powerless: the poor, working class must wear masks at work and the powerful: the consumers, are not required to. There is now a clear visual representation of the difference between the two classes. We shouldn't have gotten to this point, we shouldn't have sided with the backlash, but the capitalist way is to give the consumer what they want.

It's not only the lack of masks on Starbucks customers. It's the endless "medicine balls" for coughing customers, the fact that customers literally do not know the name of the Honey Citrus Mint Tea (and I refuse to say the other name to them and scratch it out when my coworkers write it on the cup), the "I can't taste my drink"'s from customers where I'm supposed to act like I'm the cause of their problem, the "assume positive intent" and "we can't just assume they're sick" when a customer clearly is exhibiting COVID-like symptoms or literally telling us they're experiencing them, the "you've got the right to refuse to do any work or task you feel is unsafe" when we know we don't.

This is exactly how it went the first time in 2020. They will push off actual safety regulations for as long as possible.

Just a reminder that they only offered for everyone to stay home and get paid to prevent a national walkout☺️

can someone pls show me what masks we are supposed to be wearing? my manager told me this but just said “no cloth masks”. what does this mean specifically? tysm

Sorry your break was used to write the group about this. We got your back though OP!

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My mom has made me all kinda of cute masks that fit my face well, and now I can’t wear them without double masking. This is just dumb.

Wait, you have plastic dividers up?

Yes it literally states that all we can do it offer a mask and if they refuse then tell them we need to serve them as quickly as possible soo dumb

Soo the reading I’m so confused. I checked the weekly update but didn’t see anything. Is there a paper I missed or is it all out of the US?

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Y’all acting like EVERY BUSINESS requires customers to wear masks? In all honesty, if you don’t like it, find a new job?! (Good luck finding one where they require customers to wear masks, outside of healthcare facilities obvi)

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While Covid-19 can be deadly, the good news is that the vaccines are excellent at protecting people from serious illness or death. As such, I respectfully disagree that Starbucks is asking anyone to die.

Every job involves risks, and it would be terrible if Starbucks asked anyone to risk their life in the performance of their job. But how serious are the risks from unmasked or poorly masked customers? Thanks to the effectiveness of the vaccines in preventing serious illness and death, the risks of death from Covid-19 (and even Omicron) in general are super low. Have you considered the risks of death from Covid-19 after vaccination compared to other risks that you take every day without much concern?

If you're vaccinated and boosted, your risk of death is very, very low. Not to downplay the deadliness of Covid-19, but even unvaccinated people are less likely to die from Covid-19 than from an automobile accident on the way to work. If you're under 50 years old, the odds of serious illness or death from Covid are even less. And for the vast majority of vaccinated people, breakthrough Covid cases are pretty mild.

Here are some statistics on the risks of death for context:
- Odds of dying from Covid after a booster shot are 1.6 in 1,000,000.
- Odds of dying from Covid with just 1-2 initial vaccine dose(s) are 12 in 1,000,000.
- Odds of dying from Covid without vaccination are 90 in 1,000,000.
- Odds of dying in an automobile accident are 1 in 8,393 (2019 statistics).

In other good news, most people in the US will either be vaccinated, Covid survivors, or both in a few weeks as Omicron finishes passing through the population. The masks will be essentially useless at that point anyway. And even if everyone had N95 masks, most people don't wear them correctly.