as someone from a unionized store, it’s easier said than done. it creates a very tense and aggressive environment between the baristas and managers. and the union busting has gotten ridiculous. there is also clashing information coming from both sides which confuses those trying to become educated even more. unionizing is an amazing thing but i totally understand why people are nervous to do so.

Because there is literally no support network to survive going a month with reduced hours, possible termination (lots of stories about people trying to unionize and being fired for other minor infractions) or waiting for a contract to receive an increase in pay.

For many people is their second job or third place or they have family support. For many others Starbucks is their meager living. Remember that “just go get another job” requires resources that aren’t available to everyone.

I think because of Union busting. From what I read, if a store does unionize then they will bring in new managers and move shifts around if not just fire them.

I, personally, do not want to deal with that. Also, I make enough as a shift to afford everything including rent, car payment, etc. Especially with a raise next week I see no purpose in my store unionizing. I understand why some in other places where the cost of living is higher would want to though.

dude…. you have *no* idea….

It’s easier said than done

Because a majority of my team are using the scap benefits and feel like their education will be threatened or taken away with a reduction of hours or being fired. Others fear they will lose health insurance if they are cut hours.

It causes tension between managers and baristas that is toxic. Also a lot of unionized stores are losing their benefits and might not be getting pay raises ? And also if you are a unionized store you won’t see any real change for probably over a year anyways, which I might not even be working at my store in a year. On another note, I am happy with my environment tbh. Yeah my job has issues, and Starbucks is NOT perfect AT ALL. But, I have pretty good pay a good amount higher than other minimum wage jobs. I get good benefits, I have good coworkers and a great manager. I don’t see how unionizing would help me.

On paper unions seem great. But so far the union stores around me have turned into a mess because of fights with management, and workers losing benefits as well as paying union dues, and they actually end up getting paid less than a non union store and having a worse environment.

Just my thoughts, may get downvoted for this but I just think that people are hopping on the union train without doing any research. Let me say that unions are not bad, they can be good in some cases and other corporations like Amazon or somewhere with really poor conditions. But, depending on the situation they may be not ideal! 🙂

Unions don’t solve all problems btw just a heads up

I talk about this all the time at work but at the end of the day I work with a majority of minors and they could care less about bettering the quality of life of baristas and such.

Most of he employees at my store don’t plan to make Starbucks a career/there until they finish college, so it would be very difficult to get up going with the influx of newer employees coming in and us leaving.

For me, I love our manager and we all get good hours. No complaints. I also don’t want to deal with any more than I have to. It sounds like too much work. Theres also possible inconsistencies in benefits, pay, etc, and just sounds confusing. I wouldn’t want to until every Starbucks was on board, it seems like a hassle to me.

SM told partners they'd close the store down themselves if we decided to.... which idk if they can do, but mfs don't want to lose their job

Because I literally make $20 an hour as a supervisor, which is honestly more than other corporations pay, AND Starbucks gave me 16k a semester for school. I’m so tired of everyone complaining about hourly wage tbh. If you are not happy with how much you get paid an hour, GO WORK SOMEWHERE ELSE. You don’t need a union to tell you that. However, good luck finding another job that offers full benefits covering your school, medical, dental, mental health, offers stock, 401k, free food & drinks every week, free pound of coffee every week, free Spotify subscription etc.., (working at least 20 hours a week nonetheless), not to mention Starbucks is not a career job. You’re not supposed to make a living wage as a barista or a supervisor at a fast food chain. That is why they pay for you, IN FULL, to get a college education. Use it and go get an adult job somewhere else. 🤷‍♀️
Another super great thing about working for Bux, if you don’t like your store manager and feel you’re working in bad work conditions, you can literally transfer to a different store. Weather it be down the street or across the country. You have a job wherever you go.

my entire store outside of 3 people is so against it they had an anti-union cheer at the end of our last store meeting. so uh. yeah. not gonna happen.

our sm is great and we also are on a college campus which means ability to easily transfer between stores is super important for us. also a lot partners use the healthcare and education benefits and the risk of losing it for the sake of a union isn’t worth it.

We filed to unionize and the vote resulted in the majority voting no. It caused a great deal of tension between everyone and it made for a terrible environment. I personally couldn't trust that corporate would do any negotiating on good faith and I really didn't want to see benefits being compromised, no matter how many ways one can say they are not supposed to do that.

The only reason why we did is because our SM sucks and we have had issues with her since she joined us a year ago.

I love my store manager and I love having him work on the floor with us. No one has been able to promise me that he would be able to stay on the floor with us if we unionize

It is super difficult to unionize, but if you knew the employee base or are a part of it, know that most of us are pro-union. At my store, people haven't been getting proper hours and they promised us a pay increase at the beginning of summer. Pumpkin spice is going to come out in a few weeks- no pay raise. And the summer and fall are when we are worked to the bone- walk out of the store and it's like you lived a fever dream. And for a store that wasn't unionizing, we also had managers come visit us and had "mandatory training" which was like a 1-2 hr video of our CEO saying "no unionS" cause the company fulfills their promises to us. Man get out :(
A lot of us know unionizing is good, union workers have wages 60 percent higher than non-union workers, but it's hard.

my district in upstate NY has pretty good pay and amazing management. everyone is happy, everyone uses the benefits, no one is really looking to change anything. i understand this is not the case everywhere, but we’re pretty content

edit: im also just a student, i don’t plan on staying forever

because I don’t want to work here forever, quite frankly..

Threads like this are just reasons to downvote opposing opinions. r/unionizestarbucks is --> way

When you post something on here, your opening it up to everyone’s opinions. Wether you like it or not. I think it was pretty harsh to BS someone’s opinion.

union busting and I have a pretty good sm

Sounds like you haven’t been gaslit by management enough

We don't need it; my store has a great manager and we don't have any issues rn. Also I feel like people don't know what to do once they unionize; I'm seeing stuff in here abt unionized stores losing benefits which is VERY illegal but it also feels like noöne's reporting it to the right people. A union is a tool to fight injustice towards workers but if you don't use it then it's basically just a tension machine.

I live in a collage town and so the partner turnover doesn’t justify the career befits of unionizing. I absolutely support other stores with older adults to unionize but for a collage town with a lot of turnover I can’t justify it in my head. Would love to have a discussion about it though if anyone is in the opposite situation as me.

Yea I’d be for unionizing except because you can’t borrow partners or be a borrowed partner I’m not down for it. If it was a district by district thing I’d be more down but I’m not because of it
Edit: also the fact that no one is allowing it to be done right just pisses me off and I would rather not and wait for others to deal with it. Most Unions have a 3rd party to do the negotiation and all the contracts and shit. It seems like it’s just random baristas doing it

Ehh, I believe the belief on union benefits vary from store to store. Unions are ultimately a trade off in the allocation of assets to workers. Unions often have a more effective say in negotiating better favor of workers. That is also the reason why many dont like unions, it makes it hard individuals to negotiate their own wage or benefits. This may mean benefits offered will be limited as the union may not be able to even bargain effectively (which does in fact happen).

From a store that's not unionizing, we have been watching the efforts closely and have noticed that as soon as a store unionizes, many of the store managers are quickly fired for not stopping it. We happen to be very lucky and really love our store manager and she does her very best to take care of us so we are currently just trying to protect her however we can

I can negotiate my own pay. I don't need a union. Lol

My store couldn’t because they didn’t try to go all together. The leaders kept everyone else out of it. Then couldn’t even do the basics. It’s hard to get a whole store on the same page and if you can’t then there isn’t any point. As much as I’d like to do it I also have SCAP that I can’t risk losing rn. And I can’t follow the leaders who just want to keep things in their tiny little cliche 😕

Instead of unions can we push for the asu online programs to expand a bit more also I like my job

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Because there is no guarantee that I won’t get paid LESS than the company offers. Having a “say” in your pay doesn’t guarantee you an increased wage

Because everyone I work with is republican

Our store was the first to unionize in my state, and we’re being punished for it. Our raises are being implemented later than other stores just because we’re union. They are also giving us the new benefit rollout late. It feels petty.

Thanks for the downvote…? Just giving my experience.

Right before I quit, the letter from Ross Ann came out on the hub essentially begging partners not to unionize and saying it’s a bad idea.

I now work for a Union and told that to one of my coworkers and his response was “that’s how you know it’s time to unionize”

Do it people

What’s funny is the unions are actually working. Starbucks now has to compete and is bumping pay to $15 an hour minimum plus adding more benefits. Not sure that would be happening without unions. There is however this image especially with the old school auto unions where people are basically taking advantage, doing little work, and getting paid a ton. I’ve dealt with NYC labor unions and they are awful, labor is uber expensive, they’re basically do-nothings, and they give unions a bad rap. I think there can be a middle ground where a union can make working conditions better without going to extremes

I’m trying to unionize my store. I’ve been in contact with several partners. And I’ve been secretly speaking with my coworkers too. It’s going to happen and I’m going to make it happen.

Everyone at my store is under the impression that our store is perfect so we don't need to unionize. Even when i bring up the benefits and the fact that we'd be negotiating with the company and it has nothing to do with our specific stores management, they don't want to for the simple fact of we have an amazing manager. It makes me sad because they're eating up the bullshit starbucks is pushing. So no, unless every store unionized, our store absolutely would not.

because my coworkers are not immune to propaganda.