https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/sep/13/starbucks-boycott-union-busting
Boycott would aim to use consumer power to pressure company to negotiate its first union contract
We stopped going. Our local coffee shop is better anyway.
Support your local businesses!
I’d bet the locally owned coffee shop is operated by the owner and maybe a few other employees. Not really much of an opportunity to unionize there.
It's a valid question, but also missing the forest for the trees.
The point of unionization is so you can have negotiation power. At a local coffee shop where you're one of 4 employees, you have negotiation power.
First of all, before anyone gets excited, I get coffee from starbucks extremely rarely. A couple times a year tops.
That being said, I am not a supporter of starbucks.
Ok, now, my main point- For everyone in here just saying the coffee tastes like shit, Try to be more productive towards the conversation. The coffee tastes bad, is an obvious fallacy, as nearly 40 MILLION people drink their coffee. If the coffee tastes like shit, then don't order a oat milk vanilla pumpkin spice chai latte.
The conversation is around starbucks trying to bust up unions.
Saying- the coffee tastes like shit (when 40 million people drinks it), is not productive towards the conversation, and does nothing to assist with the conversation of starbucks being anti-human, anti-union, and treating their workers like slaves.
Their coffee tastes like shit and 40 million people have bad taste in coffee. The 2 can be true.
Taste is subjective! There can't be bad taste, there can only be stuff you don't like.
So don't be an asshat and look down on other people for what they like.
It's not the sugar that makes the coffee taste bad. It's that they over roast it. Their medium is basically a dark roast.
That said, yes the bigger issue is what they have become as a company and how badly they treat their employees.
Unions are great, honestly.
Instead of passively not going to Starbucks, actively support your local coffee shop instead as well. Their coffee are usually better and not burnt to a char anyways, plus, it's not like pumpkin spice lattes are only at Starbucks.
Who wakes up and gets in their car to drive to a starbucks to get their coffee? That's psycho shit. Why wouldn't you wake up and make yourself coffee at home and drink it while you do your morning stuff?
A lot of people aren't buying a regular cup of coffee. They do the iced ones with whipped cream and caramel. All the dessert type of drinks. At least that's what I always see people drinking in the morning.
I do it at home but I've been known to stop to my local equivalent of Starbucks instead every once in a while when I don't have the time to set up the espresso machine and milk maker and then clean the whole thing afterwards.
I don't understand why people like Starbucks so much. Their coffee is nasty and so is their food. But people are addicted to it. All my relatives have the app and spend like $50+ a week there.
Only reason I ever go is because I'm roadtripping at 6am and it's the only place open that early. The indie coffee shops don't open until 8am.
Starbucks tried to open in Australia but failed to get any significant market share because Australians just prefer drinkable coffee.
Their coffee is nasty and so is their food.
That's subjective, and clearly a large portion of people disagree with it.
Honestly their forte is consistency. You'll damn near guaranteed to get the exact same cup of coffee/latte and sandwich in the middle of nowhere Arkansas as you are in downtown NYC.
I just wish that consistent flavor was something more than ash.
Not joking, that is essentially the strategy. It's very hard to get coffee beans from a hundred different farms to taste the same all over the world. That task gets much much easier if you simply burn them to a crisp so that all the varied flavor gets burned away.
Where are you that indie coffee shops aren't open at 6am? I just looked at all the coffee shops near me and they all open 6:30 or earlier except for one located inside a mall.
Boston. Indies open at 8am and close at 2pm. Starbucks is open like 6am-9pm. If I want a coffee at 3pm I am stuck with Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts. Indies can't afford to be open an extra 7 hours where they are doing very little business.
Tbh a lot of gas stations are using better coffee. A lot of people stop at Starbucks because it’s on the way to work, and they add caffeine, iirc, so their coffee is more addictive.
For the same reason there are McDonalds everywhere. They are familiar and convenient despite almost always being inferior.
People don't go to Starbucks for the physical products, they go there for the complementary handjobs.
Whether you go to Starbucks or not is kind of irrelevant. The broader population needs to know how Starbucks is anti-worker. They are happy to take more money from the consumer, and push the "partner" narrative, but it falls apart when the partners want to be treated with dignity.
That's a story everyone needs to hear before they spend $5+ on a drink.
The broader population needs to know how Starbucks is anti-worker
And what should the broader population do with that information?
Stop going to starbucks perhaps?
When you're against something you should stop financially support it.
When you're against something you should stop financially support it.
Yes. But it should be said, it cannot just stop there. People need to indicate to their various governments that union busting should be prosecuted no matter the billionaire doing the busting or the third party they hired.
I think too often people rely on the “you should vote with your wallet” that they forget, we cannot buy our way out of social ills. Spending our money on the “correct” product and not spending it on the “incorrect” product isn’t a panacea. And worse it can breed superficial support in companies to simply convince you to buy more of their shit. I think we’ve made enough memes about Eddard Stark warning us that with Pride month, the rainbows are coming to social media.
I think that’s the key point. Not going to Starbucks is one thing BUT it cannot stop there, otherwise no Real ™ change is actually going to happen. Lots of people are just tangentially caring about the issue for lots of various reasons. We need to implement change at every level. People should talk to their mayor, their city council, governor, State assembly, and what not.
Starbucks spends money so they can see results quickly, and since us common folks are not wealthy beyond belief, we’ve got to take the long and time expensive route. It cannot just be “just stop spending your money there” that alone is never going to work and breeds even worse results, with ads just pretending they’re buddy buddy with you.
Thank you for this. I'm in just this position. I would never spend money at Starbucks. And I would like to support the workers efforts to unionize. So I'll look into ways that I can do that, and to spread the word about Starbuck's insidious anti-worker corporatism.
It reminds me when the Starbucks CEO pitched that he wants to run for president. And some random guy was like, "Wtf nooooo." And that single handedly destroyed his whole platform
no dipshit. whether you got to starbucks or not is immanently relevant. if you go to starbucks, you should stop. if you don't go to starbucks you shouldn't start. it's literally the point of the initial post and the discussion of it.
A wee bit aggressive there.
Read the rest of the thread. "I can't boycott what I don't use" is everywhere. A boycott is more than money, it's getting the message out there, which was the intent of my post.
Whenever someone mentions Starbucks, I bring up how when I worked there they allowed us to take tips. They don't anymore, so you're paid minimum wage (or there about), which is not enough to live on in most cities. They've changed tremendously and without unions backing their baristas, they are no better than any other fast food restaurant (which also should be unionized).
Boycotts are funny. I can’t boycott something I don’t really buy. I only go when a customer wants it. Otherwise I don’t go because I don’t like their product. Their politics are secondary to my decision their coffee is crap.
I keep telling people their coffee is garbage, but you can't tell with all the sweetener and flavors they add. An espresso or regular coffee at Starbucks? 🤮
I’m not a fan of their coffee at all. I work in sales, so if a customer wants it. I buy it but otherwise I skip them.
I don’t like their union bashing but I’d have to be a customer to boycott it.
I’m a conservative but I support unions. It’s a check and balance to the system. We need strong unions. I also fully support unions being on the board of companies.
I could rant how I dislike boards. They’re supposed to keep things running and they do a shit Job. They do a great job of making everyone focus on the ceo who is controlled by the board.
People on the board are shit at their jobs because most boards are full of people who don't ever work at the company. They exterior consultants for the most part. Every business I have worked for, the board was a bunch of wealthy folks who showed up like 1-2x a year for the board meetings, but otherwise had zero idea what anyone did or who anyone was other than the C-suite.
Depending on the company. The ceo may be on the board which I don’t think should be allowed. Nobody at the company should be on the board since it’s to govern their behavior. They should also be legally and criminally libel since they’re the governance. Right now it’s a big circle jerk of friends getting their friends on the board and making each other ceo.
For private companies I don’t care but public companies need more accountability.
The same people calling for the boycott are not the same people buying Starbucks in the first place. They don't care lmao
Boycotts are fairly useless. If folks who never shop there do it. I really am not sure who the hell you expect to call for a boycott. Other then their customers.
PS not one, don't drink coffee at all. Addicted to tea.
Been boycotting Starbucks for years, ever since they showed their workers how little they care by giving them a meditation app instead of reasonable work expectations.
Still can't believe I wasted 4 years of my life working for that shithouse
A moka pot and some illy coffee tastes better than any Starbucks I've tried and it's way cheaper.
Moka is just the type of coffee pot. It's not really an espresso as it lacks the pressure but it's the next best thing.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Calls for a consumer boycott of Starbucks are growing amid mounting criticism of the coffee chain’s aggressive union-busting activities.
A boycott, supporters say, would aim to use consumer power to pressure Starbucks to stop its union-busting and illegal actions and to finally negotiate its first union contract.
The union has scheduled a nationwide Day of Action on 14 September to urge “customers and allies to join the fight” to get Starbucks to “respect workers’ fundamental right to organize and bargain a fair contract”.
Ganz said the grape boycott succeeded because not just farm workers backed it, but because “it was students, civil rights groups, churches, labor unions.
The former labor secretary Robert Reich, who is a Guardian columnist, said: “Until Starbucks enters into good-faith negotiations with its unionized employees – and ceases its union-busting efforts – we consumers must stop enabling this anti-worker, anti-union behavior.
Some labor experts say Starbucks is the country’s most notorious union buster since JP Stevens, a major textile company that mounted a fierce anti-union campaign in the 1960s and 1970s that included widespread illegalities.
The original article contains 1,209 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 85%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Wait, so the people who are willing to consume a product which is almost entirely imported from far away, and is therefor culpable in making the world unlivable because of green house gas emissions; are going to start boycotting it to help a few workers? Because causing a mass extinction is okay, but union-busting is not?
If you're not already boycotting from nearly a year ago, you're a giant piece of shit already. Never too late to start.
I think the bar for being "a giant piece of shit" should probably be a little higher than the act of getting a coffee. I mean, if customers are giant pieces of shit, what are the Starbucks executives? Galactic boulders of excrement?
Jokes aside and more practically speaking, I think it's more productive to urge people to consider patronizing their local cafes - or learning how to make good coffee at home - instead of trying to shame people who probably don't know or honestly care that much about random labor disputes for getting a coffee. Beyond being more positive, it's less likely to annoy people into spite.
I would say go use it if you have a gift card. They already have the money, might as well cost them some product instead of giving them an interest free loan.
I'd suggest having them remake it a bunch if that didn't fuck over some poor barista. Although ... that would be pretty funny for the pro-union stores if they were in on it.
We all have various things going on in our lives, and we often only find out about something after the fact. If you blame people for being late to the party, they'll just skip the party entirely rather than deal with your misplaced ire.