Starbucks Employees Petition Company To Stop Slashing Hours After Raising Wages

Starbucks in the uk pays very little tax the company has paid only £8.6m in corporation tax since launching in the UK 14 years ago, despite cumulative sales of £3bn.

The only time i ever go in is to claim a free coffee which you get for buying a bag of starbucks coffee in a supermarket when it is onspecial offer $ 3.50 then you give them the empty bag and you get a free coffee worth $ 3 .

www.theguardian.com...

It isn't just Starbucks, and really gets to the heart of what many people getting hours cut, while corporate profit grows, are feeling. I'm all for good business, but not so good is everywhere.

For example, I work for a company that is demanding operating budgets that net 25-35 percent profit margin annually, nationwide. We, like others in this corporation, were bought up from local ownership a decade ago. I work with some amazing people who haven't been given a raise in 11 years, after 30+ yrs in their jobs. Frozen wages, forced fewer hours, living in places they can't even afford, praying no-one gets sick, retirement not worth the stock it rode out on, while the wealthiest percentage of 1%, have sucked the life blood right out of these once vibrant people and a once rewarding life's work. These new conglomerates do not come close to supporting community efforts as their founders did. They barely and rarely try.

People are not having it anymore, and the scales have tipped so far in favour of the very top of every pyramid, they the base of our society has nothing to gain by working hard, and nothing to lose because they have nothing left.

It's rough out here. Jails are full of people who shouldn't all be in there. The rich better wake up and loosen the purse strings real quick. I'd be getting a bit concerned if I were them that we richy riches may have pushed it too far.

They did. They are.
Pitch forks are real.

a reply to: onequestion

They invest their time and effort which is far more valuable in human terms

They do, and they know going in what Starbucks values their time and effort at per hour. If they don't think it's enough, then they are welcome to go elsewhere and try to find somewhere that values their time and effort more.

But you forget that labor is not simply about investing your time and effort, it is also about what you invest your time and effort doing. The more people who are investing their time and effort doing the same thing you are, the more likely it is that your employer can find someone who is willing to invest their time and effort for less than you might be.

In other words, if there are 300,000,000 million people in the country who are willing and able to do the same job, your desire to be paid more for your time and effort is hampered by what those others would be willing to accept for their time and effort doing the same thing. Why do you think labor unions are so attractive? The are a form of protectionism where people who are willing to work for slightly less in order to have a job are forced out of the labor market in order to protect a cabal who makes it illegal for them to do that.

However, at the same time, unions create and environment where any differences in pay are not at all based on your investment of time and effort but rather on an artificial pay scale that could care less how hard you work or how conscientious you are about doing your work well.

a reply to: ketsuko

No sorry there isn't and won't ever be enough high payin jobs for everyone ever again

Even Mark Cuban has been asking the same question.


What are we going to do now with technology replacing the need for a human workforce?

That trend isn't changing.

Time throw out the ideas of the 1950's

They will be replaced by machines soon enough so they may as well complain while they still have something to complain about

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

Pretty soon they will join the 100 million people collecting handouts or the illegal workforce working for lunch and 50$ a day

a reply to: onequestion

Technology didn't start replacing the human workforce until the human workforce started demanding $15/hour to do the most basic of tasks.

A $15/hour minimum makes flipping over to technology more cost effective finally just like all the regulations businesses have been saddled with finally chased a lot of manufacturing overseas.

Do you think they are automating over there? No.

a reply to: onequestion

Wow,

I really think unions need and should be in place. Some of these large corps want to make max profits, pay people as little as possible, pay as little taxes as possible, ship as much work to third would countries as possible, have as much growth as possible.

The wheel is going to come off the rim, people have to earn money to spend. But when corps are done wiping with the USA they will move to the next big market, maybe China, leaving a steaming heap pile of pain and war.

a reply to: ketsuko

Technology has been replacing the workforce dice the printing press

How about the cotton gin

How much was the wage the slaves were demanding?

a reply to: ketsuko

Wrong, look up when rapistan corp. made their first auto skid loader (automatically puts boxes on skids).

This is going to happen no matter the pay, when did self checkouts come to grocery stores? 10 years ago? Don't have to pay that huge min wage to have a check out person.

Automation can come in many colors, but one factor is for sure, more profits for the company.

a reply to: DancedWithWolves

Agree

Oh, dear.

Here we go again. Blame the big bad investors. Ignore every law of economics.

The Law of Supply and Demand is all someone needs to know to understand what's happening here. Starbucks gave into political/social pressure and raised their wages. Once they did that, their cost of operation went up. When the marketplace slowed demand, they had to reduce the the high cost.

They can't stop buying ingredients if they intend to keep making drinks. The cost of their building and machinery is fixed; they already bought/leased it. The only thing they can do is cut payroll. That's either wages or hours. They had just raised wages in responce to social pressure, so that leaves hours.

As the price of a good increases, the demand for that good decreases.

As the price of labor increases, the demand for labor decreases.

Labor is a 'good.'

As for those big bad investors that are ruining everything... I really don't think Granny Smith living in her little house and surviving on her pension plan is the problem. You see, Granny's pension is invested in the stock market. She pooled her pitiful little savings with other Grannys to invest for their retirement. Starbucks used that money to buy buildings, machinery, ingredients, advertising, and to hire employees. The reason? Because the initial investors, the guys who did the IPO, wanted to make some money too.

Thanks to them, Granny has enough to eat in her retirement, employees have jobs, and customers have.... whatever it is that they like about Starbucks. I'm not a huge fan myself.

Now the investors are evil because they expect something in return. The corporate head office is evil for trying to keep the business running. Granny is evil for, I guess eating too much? The employees, though, are saints who should get all the profits.

Hello? Is anyone listening?

I really hope so, because this is exactly what happens every time the Federal government raises minimum wage: hours get cut, jobs are lost, and prices go up. The poor are always the ones hurt the most. And nothing in this world can change that dynamic... especially villifying those who created the jobs in the first place.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

The story said that they are addressing cooling sales. It didn't mention higher wages, it stated it didn't know if that was a factor.

The company isn't getting the growth that share holders demand. The only numbers that matters to an investor is next quarters huge gains, period.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Retaliation would also be an explanation.

Not buying it. It's easy to underschedule people. And not hard to hire suitable to employees having enough hours to survive. That's just bad management and retaliatory oppression.

Follow the money. It all drained to the top while they make management and employees follow dictates that divide them and rob them all. Scrapping over scraps we are.

Peace

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: TheRedneck
...The only numbers that matters to an investor is next quarters huge gains, period.

And???? So??? They invested money into a business with the expectation of a return on that investment that was more than 1:1. And that is a problem.........how? It's a business, not a day care center (which by the way also need to make a profit).

a reply to: seasonal

The headline read

"Starbucks Employees Petition Company To Stop Slashing Hours After Raising Wages: Over 9000 Signatures"

Please tell me, if it were your hard-earned money we were talking about as an investment, would you feel the same way? Would you shrug and say, "Never mind paying me this year; just give it as a Christmas bonus to the employees"?

When was the last time you handed your employer your paycheck back because you didn't want to be 'greedy'?

Yes, the investors want their money! Of course they do! What in the wide world of sports is wrong with that?

TheRedneck

originally posted by: TheRedneck
Oh, dear.

Here we go again. Blame the big bad investors. Ignore every law of economics.

The Law of Supply and Demand is all someone needs to know to understand what's happening here. Starbucks gave into political/social pressure and raised their wages. Once they did that, their cost of operation went up. When the marketplace slowed demand, they had to reduce the the high cost.

They can't stop buying ingredients if they intend to keep making drinks. The cost of their building and machinery is fixed; they already bought/leased it. The only thing they can do is cut payroll. That's either wages or hours. They had just raised wages in responce to social pressure, so that leaves hours.

As the price of a good increases, the demand for that good decreases.

As the price of labor increases, the demand for labor decreases.

Labor is a 'good.'

As for those big bad investors that are ruining everything... I really don't think Granny Smith living in her little house and surviving on her pension plan is the problem. You see, Granny's pension is invested in the stock market. She pooled her pitiful little savings with other Grannys to invest for their retirement. Starbucks used that money to buy buildings, machinery, ingredients, advertising, and to hire employees. The reason? Because the initial investors, the guys who did the IPO, wanted to make some money too.

Thanks to them, Granny has enough to eat in her retirement, employees have jobs, and customers have.... whatever it is that they like about Starbucks. I'm not a huge fan myself.

Now the investors are evil because they expect something in return. The corporate head office is evil for trying to keep the business running. Granny is evil for, I guess eating too much? The employees, though, are saints who should get all the profits.

Hello? Is anyone listening?

I really hope so, because this is exactly what happens every time the Federal government raises minimum wage: hours get cut, jobs are lost, and prices go up. The poor are always the ones hurt the most. And nothing in this world can change that dynamic... especially villifying those who created the jobs in the first place.

TheRedneck

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news... but Starbucks is still profiting.

a reply to: Krakatoa
except that no sane person has ever "invested" in a business that wasn`t already profitable. How do businesses become profitable? through the labor of the employees and reinvesting profits into the business only then does the business issue public stocks for the parasite investors to come in and suck some of the profits from the business at the expense of the employees.

a reply to: Krakatoa

It depends on what you think a good or dare I say a fair return is, 6% 10% 20%.


Again, The only numbers that matters to an investor is next quarters huge gains, period. And it will never be enough. Our system is set up for constant expansion, and that may not be possible anymore.

a reply to: RomeByFire

And profit is bad? A business that makes a profit, stays in business (DUH). When a business does not make a profit, it closes and ALL the employees lose their jobs (DUH).