Starbucks Takes One For The Team
I remember back in high school when I worked a couple of really crappy jobs just to have some money to call my own. My dad did give me an allowance for yard work and random projects. In all fairness, he did go above and beyond in what parents should provide their children.
I always wanted my own money which I didn’t have to be held accountable for. Ya know, for those times when I was seventeen to go on trips to the drive through liquor store in southeast DC to buy booze from the Chinese or to take my girl out to what I considered a REALLY nice dinner at the time, Maggiano’s. Yeah I was big pimpin’ in my Ford Tempo back in the day in the DC burbs.
However, those jobs I had back in the day sucked and made crap wages compared to my overbearing retail managers. These days, I can’t say it pains me to see a large corporation get bent over for their overzealous first tier management trying to mooch of their subordinate’s tip money.
According to the Associated Press, Starbuck’s has been ordered to pay a $106 million settlement in stolen tips to their California Barista’s both new and old. Basically that comes out to about $1060 per employee which isn’t bad if you ask me. I guess there is some justice in the world and if you are a Starbuck’s manager the lesson to be learned here is to keep your hands out of the tip jar!
What puzzles me though, is that I have feeling these workers might screwed over in some other way. The company’s stock has been slowly declining over the past few years and they are crying that the tips were also used to pay shift supervisors. Hey Starbucks! You made over $9.4 billion dollars last year so perhaps you should pay your employees a bit more or at least not use tips to make up for your greed! Apparently California Superior Court Judge Judge Patricia Cowett agrees too hence the ruling.
Me personally, I don’t hold this against Starbucks. They make decent coffee and are pretty convenient where I live. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be able to claim I speak a little Italian by knowing what “Venti” means and sure wouldn’t get a lot of joy asking for a Orange Mocha Frappuccino flamboyantly. Just like Britney, Starbucks seems to invade everyone’s stream of consciousness sometimes.
March 21, 2008 at 5:07 am
REALLY enjoyed this post. A story of super-effectively-marketed trendy consumer goods. Pretty impressive to manage to get your tradename synonymous with something as ubiquitous as coffee in this day & age. Unfortunately, the vultures always manage to find the carrion. One day, I hope to read one of your posts about the state of medicine in the USA. Then you’ll really get me riled up! Thanks for livening my morning, al
March 26, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Love the pic at the end. I always thought that Starbux had pretty good employee relations being that they all had health insurance (part time and full). I finished my MBA a year ago and in my classes Starbux is mentioned a gazillion times as the benchmark in social issues. It goes to show if you plan to franchise you need to be careful who you do it with.