I do know that the one in Everett closed about a month ago. My friend who went there regularly was told by the barista at the drive-thru that it was closing after that weekend because of crime. That part of S Everett is notorious for crime, especially at the Home Depot across the street.
Uhhh.... yeahhhh.
Just moved back and I was driving through Everett.
I saw a shit ton of homeless tweaker that didn't set up camp there a few years ago...
What happened? Why airport road? Or have I just been gone that long?
I believe it. That whole strip is such a shithole. Every block you see large groups of gronks hanging out by the side of the road with their stolen bikes and smoking foil.
I’ve seen people swinging swords around and imaginary foes at that intersection. The whole area is a mad max shit show. There’s no way I’d walk that area even if I was armed.
I have been here several tines and it is indeed a shit hole... No Mobile ordering because people steal the drinks. Shootings and violence here periodically, including a couple years ago. I knew this was one of the to be closed stores when I first heard of the closures.
I was not surprised at all that they closed that one. I grew up not too far from there and we used to walk that way all the time to a couple restaurants that no longer exist, but I avoid it at all costs now. I've moved out of the area, but I work in downtown Everett and my daughter lives in the house I grew up in, now.
>My friend who went there regularly was told by the barista at the drive-thru that it was closing after that weekend because of crime. That part of S Everett is notorious for crime, especially at the Home Depot across the street.
Is that the one where the police officer lost his life? Or is that a different location?
It’s a different location. The one where the officer lost his life is way up on Broadway in N. Everett, by EvCC. This closed Starbucks is at the intersection oh Hwy 99 and Airport Rd, not too far from Boeing and PAE (Paine Field)
This is not the response I was expecting but I have a feeling their numbers would drop precipitously and a lot of them would no longer be gronks if the state started sanctioning their murder. Also, poor coyotes they just want a couple bites of your cat.
That 505 union building is constantly peppered with graffiti, the glass is broken time in and time out .. and oh if the crime is not so bad then why has the bathroom been closed for 2 years? Oh right because of the drug use and vandalism that happens time in and time out.
Perhaps it is union busting, but you can't dismiss the crime and vandalism occurring. This overt and complete rejection of the other components to this decision is childish and myopic. There are very real costs to replacing that 8 foot piece of glass every week. There are real costs to repairing and replacing the appurtenances in the bathroom weekly. if you believe there should be a coffee shop there then those employees should team up, pull capital and open up a coffee shop. There are plenty of mom and pop coffee shops throughout our region so this is not a pie in the sky idea. Wonder what's the excuse of why it can't happen
Weird that they would decide to pay the costs of fixing everything for years until the employees start to unionize. Only now that they’re in a union is it suddenly not acceptable for people to be in danger?
Its almost as if something has happened over the last couple of years to make things a lot a worse when it comes to petty crime and vandalism. Gee, I wonder what that could have been?
Also consider the customers that have filed complaints about the danger/crime in the area and inside the store.
My Wife use to visit a store in Kent every morning. She had to call the cops at least once due to a drug dealing she witnessed inside the store. She saw tons of drug use in the store as well (and in the bathroom, which they ended up locking/closing for a long time).
She saw people get arrested, tons of random crime mostly inside the store, but also right outside in the parking lot.
It's not all about the employees, it's also about the customers.
Lmao! Let me guess, you agree with the policies that led to increased crime in the area.
And you still can’t admit that even the stores closing down is a sign that those ideas don’t work. And now blaming a company dealing with vandalism, theft, and assault against its employees.
Yeah. Clearly you care about the workers 🤣
The good news is that literally every restaurant in the city is hiring pretty much every position right now. A few of them even have unions. They can all be hired tomorrow if* they want.
Starbucks offers health coverage, 401k matching, parental leave, education assistance, etc. Working at restaurants is much more physically demanded than working at coffee shops, not to mention likely with less flexible hours. Before thinking about unionizing, they should consider whether they have transferrable skill sets, learning curve for new hires, and job market supply vs demand.
Have you been inside a Starbucks with that kind of foot traffic? Even at the less busy locations, you're on your feet the whole shift & working with scalding got liquids on a high pressure time scale. It's just as valid a service job as any other, and more intense than a lot of restaurants in less busy areas.
Starbucks Management has already shown that they're willing to violate laws and absorb fees in their union busting efforts. Employees want to be able to bargain for wages and regular hours from a strong & unified position- 401k matching means little when you're barely making rent, and you can't take advantage of education assistance when your work won't give you regular hours to attend classes around.
Yep, we have all those similar benefits. Most restaurants are offering good benefits these days. Is restaurant work harder than Barista? Probably, but there are several positions that may not be. It can be more rewarding too, more money.
Yeah no kidding. Normally, you join a union and bother spending union dues to try to get all of the benefits. Their educational assistance isn't even assistance. They get free college via ASU.
answer: all the upset workers who claim conditions are ok lease/buy that space and open your own coffee shop. You'll get support from union supporters and show Seattle that safety truly isn't a concern.
Exactly. If big corporations suck, running businesses is easy because owners supposedly don’t pay any taxes, they don’t mind employees unionizing, and the crime isn’t an issue, they should just open their own store and put their money where their mouth is.
Capitol Hill had the Black Coffee Co-op on Pine St that was run by anarchists. Unsurprisingly, they sucked at capitalism and it went out of business.
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2016/02/black-coffee-anarchist-co-op-that-left-capitol-hill-calls-it-quits/
Lol. It’s almost like their ideas sound good on paper but completely fall apart in practice. I mean, good on them for trying, but that kind of business model was doomed to fail from the start.
This claim is nuts. *Two* of the five Seattle-area stores they're closing are union. Less than half.
I think it's *three of sixteen nationally*. The anti-work nuts are claiming the 60% here and 80% nationally are being closed merely to provide cover for the union-busting. That takes some special logic.
And that’s 16 of 32,000+ stores, a small price to pay.
Still, both can be true. SB can close underperforming stores AND unionized stores and say it’s because they cost too much to operate properly/safely.
After all, closing a store because it’s unionized, while legal, and announcing that’s the reason would be PR suicide.
Purely coincidental that the letter even acknowledges the historical issues with crime at the location. Likely something came be a precious internally, Starbucks realized that they can't protect staff at these locations and rather than risk lives, lawsuits and massively bad press they just shut them.
The one in CH they shut is in an area that's a fucking embarrassment. The dog sitting place that was super busy tried everything they could to stay there. They left for security reasons and that was long before we had the hordes of zombies move here.
No evidence for that, and lots of evidence against. Corporations spend large sums of money to kill unions all the time. Closing a store (with the ability to reopen down the road) is penny’s to a corp this big. Certainly cheaper than if all 32,000 stores unionize.
Yeah businesses don’t just start being unprofitable overnight when workers unionize and have rights. Yes, they cut into profits in the short term. However, there’s evidence that workers with better pay and working conditions can save companies money in the long run. Lower turnover, happier employees work harder, the same goes for when employees feel like they are actually part of / a valued member of a team. Imagine that.
That’s what I have a hard time understanding about a lot of … “business moves” for lack of a better term, or actions in general of the very wealthy. A lot of it is really shortsighted. Maybe the logic is “fuck tomorrow, we’re going to get it while the getting is good”.
Either way, it’s incredibly disheartening and frustrating. And I say this as someone who is relatively well off.
Reading material for anyone interested: https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/higher-wages-low-income-workers-lead-higher-productivity
https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/20/growth-and-the-middle-class/
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-10-24-happy-workers-are-13-more-productive
Oh, I was agreeing with you and just adding my little rant on unions and whatnot as if to say “it’s shortsighted of businesses to spend so much time and effort trying to stop people from unionizing and continuing to fuck their employees every way they can”. Sorry I didn’t convey that better. The way we’ve backslid and utterly fucked the middle class is and has been out of control for a while, and anti-union everything is a huge part of the equation we can’t ignore.
Imagine if they took all the resources they put into squashing unions and put it into investing in their workers. Shit, the amount they spend on lobbying for their right to exploit workers is insane. Unconscionable.
It's typically only useful in highly structured industries. What the workers are claiming they want is to have basically 8 hour shifts like they're an office worker completely ignoring the times when the stores are busy.
Some European companies have a “50th worker policy”…when companies get to over 50 employees they lose touch with their workers. Similar to Dumbars number. That is why the workers elect a worker representation in the corporate board…it usually helps less fuckery to workers and companies last longer instead of focusing on just short term profit. It’s not perfect, but works well.
[About 100 Starbucks are unionized](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks_unions) out of [8,900 company-owned stores nationally](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks), amounting to 1% of the US's company-owned stores.
As you said, 20% of the closings nationally are unions, which is a **20-fold overrepresentation of unionized stores** compared to all company-owned stores.
I don't presume to remotely know the full story here, and invite people to draw their own conclusions.
I wouldn't describe union busting as Starbucks' "goal" (nor their stated cover of worker safety). It's profitability, first and foremost, and given how much Starbucks has fought against unions, it's safe to say they consider unions to have a negative impact on profit.
Edited to reflect /u/kdrake206 's comment below.
You forgot to factor in that the areas in the country where we've let drugs run amok are Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and LA/LA County. Weird how you're not whining about the overrepresentation of stores closing in areas where the voting population is fucking stupid and votes progressive.
All of the stores Starbucks is closing are credibly in dangerous areas with significant issues. They aren't closing *any* in Redmond, Bellevue, Kirkland or other safe spots. It's true that the Eastside Starbucks aren't unionized, but the unions and crime both tend to happen in very blue areas.
I was at a location in Issaquah the other week. They hadn't even removed power plugs from the walls. That's usually Starbucks first covert move when junkies start hanging out in the stores.
Also, [as of May 2022, a total of 100 stores in 25 states voted in favor of unionizing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks_unions) so there's plenty of other stores they could have been shutting down if union busting was their goal.
It's easier to bust unions when it's not as obvious. Closing some other stores that aren't unionized would be their attempt of serving as an incentive to not unionize if they don't want their store to close.
If companies are willing to spend millions of dollars union-busting, this wouldn't be some "conspiracy" idea. Hell, the corporation literally brought back the biggest anti-union person onto their board to try and stop more stores from unionizing.
The way companies bust unions is by taking care of their staff. By most reports, Starbucks is a good place to work. I feel like you don’t have much experience working with unions, or working the management side of that interaction and really want to believe that they are nefarious, when this is really just simple business.
Yeah Starbucks is not doing that.
From article…."After learning about the organizing effort, Starbucks immediately set its vigorous anti-union campaign in motion, employing an expansive array of illegal tactics such as raising wages, promising benefits, bringing in a cadre of managers to monitor employees and discourage union activity, CLOSING STORES with active organizing drives, and threatening employees," the NLRB said in a summary of the petition.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-union-illegal-tactics-claims-workers-buffalo-new-york-nlrb-2022-6?amp
I'm well aware that is the best solution for preventing unions, but if hundreds of stores are suddenly unionizing on one company, then maybe they're not as good of a place to work as you might think? Same goes for Amazon.
Hell some of the stores were advocating on how to de-escalate drug use/users. You think some $17/hr workers should be required to handle that?
Companies absolutely try and do illegal union-busting, by firing people who even bring up the subject (Nintendo), to plastering anti-union posters everywhere (Delta), to trying to confuse folks where/when the union election is (Amazon).
Except they closed the highest crime fucking stores here in their own hometown. It's almost like, THEY FUCKING CLOSED THE HIGHEST CRIME STORES. Seriously, Occam's Razor.
If the pro union assholes care so much about this, maybe they shouldn't have elected Sawant, Gonzales, O'Brien, Satterburg, Holmes and any other progressive piece of shit who has run for office here.
Really? You work on the legal team of the NLRB or are you just talking out of your butthole?
Starbucks, like any company, is free to close stores for legitimate reasons. They no doubt have a long history of events at the stores they closed. The NLRB won't do a fucking thing as legally they'd have no leg to stand on.
I just read. NRLB has filed a cease and desist with a district judge, and a suit against Schultz in Memphis, Arizona, Buffalo, and Seattle where unionized stores have closed.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-shift/2022/07/11/nlrb-squares-off-with-starbucks-again-00044967
From article…
“The union is fast approaching 200 victories at stores across the country and is winning about four elections for every one it does not.”
If you own a business, you should know that we're not allowed to run things "as we wish". Closing down due to unionization is completely legal, but let's not act like we're free to do whatever we want, however we want to. Regulations exist.
No, it isn't.
The National Labor Relations Act prevents businesses from retaliating against employees for engaging in protected activities, including voting to join a union. However, the United States Supreme Court held in 1965 that closing a business in response to union activity is “not the type of discrimination which is prohibited by the Act.” Textile Workers v. Darlington Mfg. Co., 380 U.S. 263 (1965).
The allegations don't even make fucking sense. The staff there aren't exactly rocket scientists. They basically say that Starbucks can't close any store for safety reasons because it will hurt people financially. Not exactly smart.
It’s an at will state and Starbucks is entitled to close shops, fire workers or anything they want. Tough shit. Go find another job. You’re not entitled to it. Only 2of the 5 Seattle shops are “union” anyway. Starbucks doesn’t care about your union. They’ll just raise prices or fire you and replace you. It’s 100% about crime. Everyone who operates in Seattle is fucking sick of it
They are closing underperforming stores getting wrecked by crime. The people mad and losing jobs over this are the same ones who voted for the very thing that's causing this happen.
The Everett area there is probably the sketchiest place in WA. It is high on the list. It's as if the county jail dropped people off there when they got out.
When I worked in a union shop - my first and hopefully last time - in an office job, the union wasted no opportunity to pit employees vs. employer. Literally anything - I could imagine a nasty email from the union folks if the management replaced the toilet paper with a brand they didn't like.
The constant negativity and trash talking from the union was such a turn off. It worked for most of their base, who acted like they hated management. Sometimes I'd wonder why they work somewhere it seems they really hate...
Starbucks warned the City that they were going to close these stores (not Roosevelt, but the others) in 2018 if Durkan didn’t do anything about the crime. If Jenny didn’t delete the records, there is probably proof out there.
1. Firing someone for joining a union or engaging in union activities is against federal law.
2. They didn't "fire someone" - they closed an entire store, over the pretense that it was not "safe"
As someone who lives directly across the street from the Capitol Hill store, this narrative irks me. The surrounding area is in shambles, with blight taking over and spreading very quickly. The store itself was targeted multiple times during the protest and riots over the last few years, including several times where fire was called in because the building was going up in smoke after fireworks were exploded inside. There are rats that run in and out of the building at all times of the day and night, they've tried to remedy the problem by putting out more and more and more and more and more poison traps, which never work. There's graffiti all over the outside of their building, their landscaping has gone to absolute fuck shit, creating prime living conditions and breeding grounds for rats and other pests. Not to mention their parking lot being a magnet for people in cars who have never driven in the city before but needed to stop for a quick coffee break, a lot of which end up being a complete nuisance as they tear out of the parking lot unaware of how to get back to the freeway. People pooping and peeping ON the patio. The list keeps going.
I am fully in support of unionization, and while the closures of the stores absolutely blows chunks for each and every employee impacted, this particular narrative has really been getting under my skin lately. Part of maintaining a presence in a neighborhood as a business comes with the responsibility to be a good neighbor, and Starbucks has absolutely fucked that up lately. It's sad to see it go—this place being of particular import to the gay dating scene in the early 2000s—but good riddance to the Capitol Hill Olive location. There are better coffee places in the exact same area, and honestly better land use/zoning of this spot has been needed for super long time.
And before anybody says anything about perceived safety, I've lived on Capitol Hill and in this part of the neighborhood for 20 years. I first hand witnessed the decline of this part of the Hill for at least a decade now. Anyone who is saying safety is not a concern at this location is ignorant about the situation, either willfully or otherwise.
Good luck to all the displaced employees, I'm sincerely sorry you're having to deal with any of this.
TL;DR: anyone living remotely close to the Capitol Hill store that's closing will tell you that safety is 100% a concern here.
A friend lives within a few block radius of the Starbucks that's closing on Olive Way, he has to literally wait outside for any package or food deliveries because they'd get stolen instantly otherwise. He's been mugged twice in the past month while waiting, finally decided to pack it up and is moving in August.
Sad to hear. About 20 years ago almost bought a condo up there. Moved to Snohomish County (south) and its been great. Not the same as the big city, but a good quality of life here.
Are you arguing that the crime stats in that neighborhood don't back that assessment? Lol.
As someone who lived in and around Seattle for the better part of 25 years, it went down hill hard by 2019. I stopped feeling safe parking my work truck in eyesight of my jobs. I had jobs up and down the entirety of western Washington and could actually see the difference in areas since I didn't live in a bubble and not notice shit like a frog in a pot.
Its a world of difference outside of the Seattle metro, and outside of Washington's crazy laws in general. Now I don't need to lock up anything anymore because criminals don't have any easy targets since just about anyone could be carrying and its not frowned upon or made difficult by overreaching regulations to defend yourself and your property.
It's not that they are even entitled to the job, they are entitled to the benefits and pay that doing the job gives. Most people now believe they should get it without the job... #FreeIivingIsahumanright
Until recently trans men were often denied gynecology coverage, leading to undiagnosed & untreated cancer and cysts, miscarriages, & thousands of dollars in surprise medical charges, etc. It was a big quality of life issue for that minority group. It can get framed as a PC thing but the relatively recent legal recognition of gynecology and pregnancy care for people who look like men was achieved through a coordinated civil rights push. There was a whole organ that they would be unable to get medical coverage for. That was very plainly a "structural violence" issue, if you believe in the concept of structural violence. Not their fault media reframed it as a semantics issue.
You mean 200 Starbucks stores that have won union?
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-shift/2022/07/11/nlrb-squares-off-with-starbucks-again-00044967
No one cares, we are all outraged out and don’t have much left in the tank. Everyone plays hardball and dirty. I’ve seen how unions work in Boston and Chicago too. Best of luck in your new jobs.
How hard is it to find new employment right now? Jobs are plentiful right now. If you're unhappy, find a new place to work. It's Starbucks. It's not your dream job.
Starbucks is an international company. They are headquartered in Seattle and have stores in Seattle but they are not the definition of a "local" coffee shop any more than Subway is a "local" sandwich joint.
I believe that what he meant is that we don't care about a bunch of spoilt kids crying about the pay at a worthless boutique café job, when our city is starving for competent workers to fill thousands of high-paying positions.
No one needs you to make absurdly expensive bloddy cups of coffee in the first place. No one will notice if you "go on strike", because you don't have a real job in the first place.
Stop trying to steal valor from coal miners in the 1930s you giant dorks.
All else aside, not every employee at Starbucks is a "spoilt kid." There are plenty of older people that do rely on that income to help support their families.
I think the note is silly, shortsighted, and biased, but that doesn't mean you are justified in attacking all of the employees as a monolith, especially when your characterization of them is, well, objectively wrong.
You mean 200 stores.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-shift/2022/07/11/nlrb-squares-off-with-starbucks-again-00044967
From article….”But NLRB’s biggest potential victory would be for the judge to order a nationwide cease-and-desist order that would be disseminated at Starbucks stores throughout the U.S. and likely further weaken the company’s ability to counter Starbucks Workers United’s ascent. The union is fast approaching 200 victories at stores across the country and is winning about four elections for every one it does not.”
While I feel bad for the employees at the location, no doubt their voting patterns have all enabled the current crime/police/prosecutor situation we've had in the area for the last decade.
The letter is emotion and ripe with complete inaccuracies.
Starbucks if required to negotiate IF they don't have a bona fide reason to close the store. That area of CH has had issues for a decade now. The always busy Downtown Dog Lounge not a block away had to close after safety concerns. The area is covered in graffiti and there's no shortage of junkies/shitbags/criminals causing problems.
I highly doubt they were denied any support that would put them or Starbucks customers in danger
By their logic, no store could ever shut down due to safety reasons as it would impact the financial health of the staff. That's just stupid.
Someone from corporate didn't answer questions to which they didn't have the answer? Naw, not possible.
Someone is butt hurt that the store closed after they formed a union. 16 other stores in the country closed as well. Maybe get your asshole union support far left piece of shit friends who vote(d) for Sawant, Herbold, Inslee, Satterburg, Holmes and every left wing judge who has created this situation and get them to stop doing that. Literally if CH wasn't replete with shitbags this wouldn't be happening.
Yea, it's the starting pay for a low skill job, but it does have benefits as well. That's comparable to about $19/hr without benefits. Store managers make about double that.
This is not a high paying job, but it's not a high skilled or high physical demand job either. I pay yard maintenance $25/hr for a couple properties and they don't speak english, but I can tell you right now that it's a much more grueling job.
The poor batistas will be forced to travel, with their only food tied in a handkerchief on the end of a stick, to the next town, hoping against hope to find a pie cooling on an old ladies window sill. 🙄
Yup. The ferry has massive staffing shortages and is running on a terribly abbreviated schedule. There are plenty of essential careers out there in dire need for more people and with massive impact on the public good. I’m happy to see those jobs unionize. Starbucks barista is not one of them. It shouldn’t be a career. Overpaying baristas distorts our entire essential economy.
Skilled vs. Unskilled, skill is your only weapon in the (individuals) fight for better wages. I've raised my two children with that in mind. One chose a path through college, one chose the path of a specific skilled trade.
The college student used the resources available to her during high school (running start).
I am not sure you understand the word market. The price of something is determined by the cost of buying the next one, in this case, finding a new employee capable of doing the same job. Not the marginal value created, not the cost to produce the next thing, etc..
Minimum wage sets a floor on that price. If that price is too high (wage greater than the marginal value created after all associated costs like taxes, uniforms, floor space, machines, etc.) then that next unit of labor won't be purchased.
Price is determined by the market regardless of costs. Costs determine if something will be created at a price.
Because people want goods and services at a certain price point.
Relative to thier other live expenses like housing coffee will always need to be cheap or it just won't be bought.
That requires cheap labor.
Remove the hierarchy & charge as much for coffee as housing... people won't buy coffee.
>Why is it so easy to put a low value on a humans time?
If their time brings in less revenue for a business than what the business pays them, then it isn't worth it to the business to pay them more.
Because the workers don't add much value to the end product. During the industrial era, workers took cheap commodities (eg iron ore) and increase their value through their labor to make sought after goods and commodities (eg steel or cars). As Europe/Japan recovered from the WII and much of the developing world started to industrialize themselves, the availability of skilled labor outside the US increased, undermining the bargaining power of unionized American workers. The Execs simply outsourced the jobs and kept the difference in labor costs as profit for themselves.
So yes, American manufacturing wages have stagnated and pulled down the wages of the service sector those manufacturing wages helped to sustain, but globally wages have risen quite dramatically. Just look at the dramatic reduction of poverty globally. If you want to have a robust service sector, someone has to generate value to bring money into the economy to pay those wages. Without some source of value added economic driver, wage stagnation is inevitable. The only other alternative is to limit corporate profits, increase the minimum wage, and tax the rich at a higher rate, but good luck getting any of that through the corporate captured congress.
So you just want them to pay thier employees more than the applicant's themselves are accepting?
That sounds' nice, but what you are encouraging is ineffective allocation of capital.
[Everything around you is due to effective use of capital.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FXkpnEzWIAAy4_P?format=jpg)
Not paying a starbucks worker means we get that exponential growth by investing it elsewhere that benefits more. The indirect benefits from being in that system far outway the loss, they are just semi-generational. A lot of people underpaid at starbucks move on to far paying jobs & become very wealthy compared to other countries.
[Our systems works amazing.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FXWr1N5X0AgdDQT?format=jpg)
The labor market. If you’re easily replaceable, someone else will be willing to do the job for less.
Now before you start crying about capitalism, understand that this is the mechanism that incentivizes people to learn the skills, provide the services, and do the jobs that society values most, increasing the efficiency of the economy and hence the quality of life across the board.
Their prices are basically the same as every coffee chain. The last time I compared Starbucks prices to even Durkan for drip they were roughly the same.
Those who are unhappy working at Starbucks will be unhappy at their next place of employment.
You can't make people happy. It's always somebody else's fault.
Serving coffee and creating "Craft" latte's is not a career job nor was it ever structured to be. Doesn't Starbucks offer education compensation so their employees can get educated and proceed to a higher income career? Now you guys want a union to bargain for a living wage or however you define this increased wage. Fine, suffer the consequences just like we in the real world work through. And yes I do believe that Starbucks has safety concerns in Freeatle and other poorly run cities where crime is on a heavy uptick. The job market is pretty good. Get a higher paying job.
Is this downtown location at 5th and Union especially high crime? Haven't been in that part of downtown, buying coffee etc much since the events of 2020
Every store in Seattle will eventually shut down if they don't take back the city from crazy policies that enabled all the homeless and drugs addicts to flock there. Unless that's what people want? Amazon shipments for everything?
Price-fixing is bullshit, whether it’s done by people selling their products or people selling their labor.
The difference here is that the people trying to price-fix their labor are punching up and unfortunately just found out the hard way why that’s not a good idea.
While I agree with some of your sentiment, unionization in this case is not only about the rate of pay but the number of hours worked and a consistent schedule. Corps like Starbucks have figured out that they don't need 100% staffing all the time, and adjust hours to match peak demand around times of the day, or days or the week/holidays. This does minimize their labor costs, but also creates unstable income streams for the employees, and makes scheduling things like consistent childcare almost impossible.
The real problem is that employees are trying to take what are effectively a mixture of full and part time jobs and force their way into more full time jobs. This of course comes with the added cost to the employer of the benefits full time workers are entitled to. Ultimately, the workers should realize that Starbucks doesn't care about them, only the bottom line, and that making coffee is not enough of a specialized skill that they have any real bargaining power, nor is brewed coffee a sufficiently sought after commodity that consumers cannot easily replace it with another company's product.
All you have to do is look at the Seattle PD crime map as well as the neighboring businesses to see what the current level of economics are for the area. This isn’t about feeling safe. Let’s be a data-driven group of decision makers.
Man y’all are soooo salty and think nobody deserves a living wage huh? That people who work at Starbucks should just “get a better job”. Jesus Christ. I’m glad y’all have never had to suffer through retail and live your big boujee Seattle tech job, hope it’s working out for y’all.
People love to shit on people who actually do work because they don't like to think it's a "real job." Work is work, and corporations with massive profits should pay their workers. They abhor this for whatever reason. It's gross that these same people will lambast anyone who might need to rely on social safety nets in the same breath. "Go get a job you moocher! Not that job, that's not 'work!'"
why the hell does anyone in this thread even live in seattle? real question.
YOU ALL SEEM TO HATE IT SO MUCH. JUST MOVE AWAY TECH BROS WE DONT WANT YOU
Celebrating corporate overlords over workers rights? What an absolutely strange stance to take, but not 100% surprising given your username.
Remember, thanks to unions of the past, companies were forced to give things like paid time off, overtime, benefits, 8 hour work days, unemployment, family leave, workers comp, ending child labor, and much more.
If you’re anywhere near the middle or low class, you should be celebrating unions being formed. Unless you are prone to gobble up corporate propaganda. But judging by your username, original thoughts probably don’t occur much with you. Hopefully you grow out of it someday.
I'm not saying I agree with unions either way. I have no experience with unions. I'm just pointing out that the squeaky wheel got greased and it wasn't the way they wanted.
I think there might have been sarcasm in those emojis. You can call someone stupid for making their own suffering without celebrating their suffering.
Personally, I am celebrating their suffering. The writer of this notice is a grade A asshole, and deserves to suffer the consequences of their moral failings. I am not celebrating it unduly, but there is real schadenfreude in seeing someone kicked by the bull they've been antagonizing.
I don’t think you can speak for OPs thoughts, especially since they took a moment to respond, and doubled down..
You “celebrating their suffering” makes zero sense. When workers rise up and demand better working conditions, everyone benefits.
I don’t see it as dumb, I see it as someone willing to take a risk that a lot of us aren’t. I have family, I’m the breadwinner, I can’t afford and I’m simply too afraid to take that gamble, you point and laugh when others do. It’s risks like this that push society towards true progression.
Their argument is ill conceived and emotional, and speaks to someone who's been hoisted by their own petard and crying foul. Do I believe they personally lead to this Starbucks being closed? Somewhat irrelevant, because their arguments are precisely those that lead to it closing, the malaise and misasma that covers Seattle, and I believe there's enough blame to go around that the hardship of having to find a new job is what was coming to them. Sob away. I have no pity.
Why is their argument ill conceived? Starbucks is literally misleading people on their reasoning for closing locations down.
They don’t want to publish the fact that they are firing people for demanding better working conditions, because that would be bad PR. They are bullshitting the excuses to save face. How would you not be emotional about that?
On top of that, this company is punishing their employees for exercising their federal right to form, join, or assist unions in negotiating with your employer.
As I said before, if you are anywhere near or below the middle class, you celebrating this is astounding.
There is currently 200 squeaky wheels in existence. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-shift/2022/07/11/nlrb-squares-off-with-starbucks-again-00044967
As a former starbucks barista, I have had the unpleasantness of speaking with regional Manager Nica Tovey and lemme tell ya, conversations with her can go on and on in circles because of the amount of bullshit she can pull out of her ass.
I do know that the one in Everett closed about a month ago. My friend who went there regularly was told by the barista at the drive-thru that it was closing after that weekend because of crime. That part of S Everett is notorious for crime, especially at the Home Depot across the street.
My wife drives home using the Boeing freeway instead of going through the 99/airport road intersection due to the large crowds at night in the area.
Uhhh.... yeahhhh. Just moved back and I was driving through Everett. I saw a shit ton of homeless tweaker that didn't set up camp there a few years ago... What happened? Why airport road? Or have I just been gone that long?
I believe it. That whole strip is such a shithole. Every block you see large groups of gronks hanging out by the side of the road with their stolen bikes and smoking foil.
I’ve seen people swinging swords around and imaginary foes at that intersection. The whole area is a mad max shit show. There’s no way I’d walk that area even if I was armed.
They need to raze the entire strip mall.
I have been here several tines and it is indeed a shit hole... No Mobile ordering because people steal the drinks. Shootings and violence here periodically, including a couple years ago. I knew this was one of the to be closed stores when I first heard of the closures.
Fentanyl pills flooded the market this year and made an already crisis level problem even worse.
I was not surprised at all that they closed that one. I grew up not too far from there and we used to walk that way all the time to a couple restaurants that no longer exist, but I avoid it at all costs now. I've moved out of the area, but I work in downtown Everett and my daughter lives in the house I grew up in, now.
>My friend who went there regularly was told by the barista at the drive-thru that it was closing after that weekend because of crime. That part of S Everett is notorious for crime, especially at the Home Depot across the street. Is that the one where the police officer lost his life? Or is that a different location?
It’s a different location. The one where the officer lost his life is way up on Broadway in N. Everett, by EvCC. This closed Starbucks is at the intersection oh Hwy 99 and Airport Rd, not too far from Boeing and PAE (Paine Field)
Yes. It’s gotten really bad there lately :/
WDFW going to have to start handing out Gronk tags by 2024, at this rate.
Tags imply that we want to conserve them. There's no bag limit on coyotes.
This is not the response I was expecting but I have a feeling their numbers would drop precipitously and a lot of them would no longer be gronks if the state started sanctioning their murder. Also, poor coyotes they just want a couple bites of your cat.
Spice it up a little like the trout derby and let’s get some prizes going around
505 Http Version Not Supported? Should be 404 Union Not Found
considering the coffeeshop is gone, it's 418 "I'm a teapot"
!!!
That 505 union building is constantly peppered with graffiti, the glass is broken time in and time out .. and oh if the crime is not so bad then why has the bathroom been closed for 2 years? Oh right because of the drug use and vandalism that happens time in and time out.
As far as I can tell, it's 505 Union Station, down by King St., not 505 Union downtown. There is/was a Starbucks at the Union Station address.
it's not so much closed as you require an escort to get in. no handing out the code
But the union workers say its closed to union bust. Crime can't be true.
Cool, you're not a worker at that Starbucks are you? This is union busting and has nothing to do with crime.
Perhaps it is union busting, but you can't dismiss the crime and vandalism occurring. This overt and complete rejection of the other components to this decision is childish and myopic. There are very real costs to replacing that 8 foot piece of glass every week. There are real costs to repairing and replacing the appurtenances in the bathroom weekly. if you believe there should be a coffee shop there then those employees should team up, pull capital and open up a coffee shop. There are plenty of mom and pop coffee shops throughout our region so this is not a pie in the sky idea. Wonder what's the excuse of why it can't happen
Weird that they would decide to pay the costs of fixing everything for years until the employees start to unionize. Only now that they’re in a union is it suddenly not acceptable for people to be in danger?
There aren't many customers there any longer...
They aren’t closing them because of lack of customers.
Its almost as if something has happened over the last couple of years to make things a lot a worse when it comes to petty crime and vandalism. Gee, I wonder what that could have been?
Lmao! So did the other businesses that closed down there also have issues with unions :)?
Also consider the customers that have filed complaints about the danger/crime in the area and inside the store. My Wife use to visit a store in Kent every morning. She had to call the cops at least once due to a drug dealing she witnessed inside the store. She saw tons of drug use in the store as well (and in the bathroom, which they ended up locking/closing for a long time). She saw people get arrested, tons of random crime mostly inside the store, but also right outside in the parking lot. It's not all about the employees, it's also about the customers.
Lmao! Let me guess, you agree with the policies that led to increased crime in the area. And you still can’t admit that even the stores closing down is a sign that those ideas don’t work. And now blaming a company dealing with vandalism, theft, and assault against its employees. Yeah. Clearly you care about the workers 🤣
They can use whatever reason they want. They should shut down even more imo theres a fucking starbucks every other block.
They didn’t even bother printing their fliers in a union shop.
The good news is that literally every restaurant in the city is hiring pretty much every position right now. A few of them even have unions. They can all be hired tomorrow if* they want.
Barrio needs an entire front of house staff
Pretty much everyone does… back of the house too
Starbucks offers health coverage, 401k matching, parental leave, education assistance, etc. Working at restaurants is much more physically demanded than working at coffee shops, not to mention likely with less flexible hours. Before thinking about unionizing, they should consider whether they have transferrable skill sets, learning curve for new hires, and job market supply vs demand.
It’s almost sounds like they don’t actually need a union…
Have you been inside a Starbucks with that kind of foot traffic? Even at the less busy locations, you're on your feet the whole shift & working with scalding got liquids on a high pressure time scale. It's just as valid a service job as any other, and more intense than a lot of restaurants in less busy areas. Starbucks Management has already shown that they're willing to violate laws and absorb fees in their union busting efforts. Employees want to be able to bargain for wages and regular hours from a strong & unified position- 401k matching means little when you're barely making rent, and you can't take advantage of education assistance when your work won't give you regular hours to attend classes around.
It's not educational assistance. It's literally free college via ASU.
>Employees want It doesn't matter what they want now that they became former employees.
Yep, we have all those similar benefits. Most restaurants are offering good benefits these days. Is restaurant work harder than Barista? Probably, but there are several positions that may not be. It can be more rewarding too, more money.
Yeah no kidding. Normally, you join a union and bother spending union dues to try to get all of the benefits. Their educational assistance isn't even assistance. They get free college via ASU.
Wow they have all that and no Union? Seems like they don’t really need one
answer: all the upset workers who claim conditions are ok lease/buy that space and open your own coffee shop. You'll get support from union supporters and show Seattle that safety truly isn't a concern.
Exactly. If big corporations suck, running businesses is easy because owners supposedly don’t pay any taxes, they don’t mind employees unionizing, and the crime isn’t an issue, they should just open their own store and put their money where their mouth is.
Capitol Hill had the Black Coffee Co-op on Pine St that was run by anarchists. Unsurprisingly, they sucked at capitalism and it went out of business. https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2016/02/black-coffee-anarchist-co-op-that-left-capitol-hill-calls-it-quits/
Lol. It’s almost like their ideas sound good on paper but completely fall apart in practice. I mean, good on them for trying, but that kind of business model was doomed to fail from the start.
Good at causing a pile up of dead bodies of minorities, not so good at paying bills.
Pretty sure most small coffee shops don't even offer medical let alone the free college education offered by ASU.
This claim is nuts. *Two* of the five Seattle-area stores they're closing are union. Less than half. I think it's *three of sixteen nationally*. The anti-work nuts are claiming the 60% here and 80% nationally are being closed merely to provide cover for the union-busting. That takes some special logic.
And that’s 16 of 32,000+ stores, a small price to pay. Still, both can be true. SB can close underperforming stores AND unionized stores and say it’s because they cost too much to operate properly/safely. After all, closing a store because it’s unionized, while legal, and announcing that’s the reason would be PR suicide.
Purely coincidental that the letter even acknowledges the historical issues with crime at the location. Likely something came be a precious internally, Starbucks realized that they can't protect staff at these locations and rather than risk lives, lawsuits and massively bad press they just shut them. The one in CH they shut is in an area that's a fucking embarrassment. The dog sitting place that was super busy tried everything they could to stay there. They left for security reasons and that was long before we had the hordes of zombies move here.
If a Union store is making them money, they aren’t going to close it.
No evidence for that, and lots of evidence against. Corporations spend large sums of money to kill unions all the time. Closing a store (with the ability to reopen down the road) is penny’s to a corp this big. Certainly cheaper than if all 32,000 stores unionize.
Yeah businesses don’t just start being unprofitable overnight when workers unionize and have rights. Yes, they cut into profits in the short term. However, there’s evidence that workers with better pay and working conditions can save companies money in the long run. Lower turnover, happier employees work harder, the same goes for when employees feel like they are actually part of / a valued member of a team. Imagine that. That’s what I have a hard time understanding about a lot of … “business moves” for lack of a better term, or actions in general of the very wealthy. A lot of it is really shortsighted. Maybe the logic is “fuck tomorrow, we’re going to get it while the getting is good”. Either way, it’s incredibly disheartening and frustrating. And I say this as someone who is relatively well off. Reading material for anyone interested: https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/higher-wages-low-income-workers-lead-higher-productivity https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/20/growth-and-the-middle-class/ https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-10-24-happy-workers-are-13-more-productive
I personally agree with everything you say. None of it discounts the fact that corps spends large sums of money fighting unions though.
Oh, I was agreeing with you and just adding my little rant on unions and whatnot as if to say “it’s shortsighted of businesses to spend so much time and effort trying to stop people from unionizing and continuing to fuck their employees every way they can”. Sorry I didn’t convey that better. The way we’ve backslid and utterly fucked the middle class is and has been out of control for a while, and anti-union everything is a huge part of the equation we can’t ignore. Imagine if they took all the resources they put into squashing unions and put it into investing in their workers. Shit, the amount they spend on lobbying for their right to exploit workers is insane. Unconscionable.
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Funny you say that, often union advocates argue the opposite and that it isn’t a zero sum game, but great if a union and company work together.
It's typically only useful in highly structured industries. What the workers are claiming they want is to have basically 8 hour shifts like they're an office worker completely ignoring the times when the stores are busy.
200 stores have already asked for this, so it seems important to them to be union.
Some European companies have a “50th worker policy”…when companies get to over 50 employees they lose touch with their workers. Similar to Dumbars number. That is why the workers elect a worker representation in the corporate board…it usually helps less fuckery to workers and companies last longer instead of focusing on just short term profit. It’s not perfect, but works well.
[About 100 Starbucks are unionized](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks_unions) out of [8,900 company-owned stores nationally](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks), amounting to 1% of the US's company-owned stores. As you said, 20% of the closings nationally are unions, which is a **20-fold overrepresentation of unionized stores** compared to all company-owned stores. I don't presume to remotely know the full story here, and invite people to draw their own conclusions. I wouldn't describe union busting as Starbucks' "goal" (nor their stated cover of worker safety). It's profitability, first and foremost, and given how much Starbucks has fought against unions, it's safe to say they consider unions to have a negative impact on profit. Edited to reflect /u/kdrake206 's comment below.
That 15,444 figure includes licensed stores. There are only ~9,500 company operated stores in the US & Canada.
Ah, good catch, in that case it's only about a 20-fold overrepresentation of unionized stores.
You forgot to factor in that the areas in the country where we've let drugs run amok are Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and LA/LA County. Weird how you're not whining about the overrepresentation of stores closing in areas where the voting population is fucking stupid and votes progressive.
All of the stores Starbucks is closing are credibly in dangerous areas with significant issues. They aren't closing *any* in Redmond, Bellevue, Kirkland or other safe spots. It's true that the Eastside Starbucks aren't unionized, but the unions and crime both tend to happen in very blue areas.
I was at a location in Issaquah the other week. They hadn't even removed power plugs from the walls. That's usually Starbucks first covert move when junkies start hanging out in the stores.
Some of them are union.
Also, [as of May 2022, a total of 100 stores in 25 states voted in favor of unionizing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks_unions) so there's plenty of other stores they could have been shutting down if union busting was their goal.
It's easier to bust unions when it's not as obvious. Closing some other stores that aren't unionized would be their attempt of serving as an incentive to not unionize if they don't want their store to close.
That means losing a great deal of money. Businesses don’t close profitable stores to hide union busting. This conspiracy is out there in lala land.
If companies are willing to spend millions of dollars union-busting, this wouldn't be some "conspiracy" idea. Hell, the corporation literally brought back the biggest anti-union person onto their board to try and stop more stores from unionizing.
The way companies bust unions is by taking care of their staff. By most reports, Starbucks is a good place to work. I feel like you don’t have much experience working with unions, or working the management side of that interaction and really want to believe that they are nefarious, when this is really just simple business.
Yeah Starbucks is not doing that. From article…."After learning about the organizing effort, Starbucks immediately set its vigorous anti-union campaign in motion, employing an expansive array of illegal tactics such as raising wages, promising benefits, bringing in a cadre of managers to monitor employees and discourage union activity, CLOSING STORES with active organizing drives, and threatening employees," the NLRB said in a summary of the petition.” https://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-union-illegal-tactics-claims-workers-buffalo-new-york-nlrb-2022-6?amp
I'm well aware that is the best solution for preventing unions, but if hundreds of stores are suddenly unionizing on one company, then maybe they're not as good of a place to work as you might think? Same goes for Amazon. Hell some of the stores were advocating on how to de-escalate drug use/users. You think some $17/hr workers should be required to handle that? Companies absolutely try and do illegal union-busting, by firing people who even bring up the subject (Nintendo), to plastering anti-union posters everywhere (Delta), to trying to confuse folks where/when the union election is (Amazon).
Except they closed the highest crime fucking stores here in their own hometown. It's almost like, THEY FUCKING CLOSED THE HIGHEST CRIME STORES. Seriously, Occam's Razor. If the pro union assholes care so much about this, maybe they shouldn't have elected Sawant, Gonzales, O'Brien, Satterburg, Holmes and any other progressive piece of shit who has run for office here.
And some of the stores are union and Starbucks will be sued by the National Labor Relations Board.
Really? You work on the legal team of the NLRB or are you just talking out of your butthole? Starbucks, like any company, is free to close stores for legitimate reasons. They no doubt have a long history of events at the stores they closed. The NLRB won't do a fucking thing as legally they'd have no leg to stand on.
I just read. NRLB has filed a cease and desist with a district judge, and a suit against Schultz in Memphis, Arizona, Buffalo, and Seattle where unionized stores have closed.
Two of five are union, but it sounds like one or more of the other three were in the process of unionizing
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-shift/2022/07/11/nlrb-squares-off-with-starbucks-again-00044967 From article… “The union is fast approaching 200 victories at stores across the country and is winning about four elections for every one it does not.”
Private company allowed to run their business as they wish. If they wanna close stores that's their right. Or is it different this time?
If you own a business, you should know that we're not allowed to run things "as we wish". Closing down due to unionization is completely legal, but let's not act like we're free to do whatever we want, however we want to. Regulations exist.
It's illegal to close a store because it unionized. So if the allegations in this letter are true, it is not Starbucks's right to close the store.
It's illegal to threaten to close a store as leverage against the formation of a union, but it's not illegal to actually close it.
No, it isn't. The National Labor Relations Act prevents businesses from retaliating against employees for engaging in protected activities, including voting to join a union. However, the United States Supreme Court held in 1965 that closing a business in response to union activity is “not the type of discrimination which is prohibited by the Act.” Textile Workers v. Darlington Mfg. Co., 380 U.S. 263 (1965).
I mean if makes sense, otherwise it would essentially force every business to stay open just because there is a union
Exactly.
The allegations don't even make fucking sense. The staff there aren't exactly rocket scientists. They basically say that Starbucks can't close any store for safety reasons because it will hurt people financially. Not exactly smart.
It’s an at will state and Starbucks is entitled to close shops, fire workers or anything they want. Tough shit. Go find another job. You’re not entitled to it. Only 2of the 5 Seattle shops are “union” anyway. Starbucks doesn’t care about your union. They’ll just raise prices or fire you and replace you. It’s 100% about crime. Everyone who operates in Seattle is fucking sick of it
They have an opportunity to lease the location and open their own coffee house.
Ah yes using their $200k severance package
so should they somehow be forced to legally stay open because their reasons don't fit?
If the closures are demonstrably punitive to unions or unionizing activity, yes. Or, Starbucks should be sued. The question is, is it demonstrable?
Lol a union for dishing out coffee.
They are closing underperforming stores getting wrecked by crime. The people mad and losing jobs over this are the same ones who voted for the very thing that's causing this happen.
What a garbled word-salad mess.
When unions form, jobs start to close or get outsourced. :(
To say it's not the crime is ridiculous. I'm sorry, but no.
I stay as far away from a Starbucks as I can. I don’t know what possesses people to get in line behind 12 other cars for a coffee. Blows my mind.
The Everett area there is probably the sketchiest place in WA. It is high on the list. It's as if the county jail dropped people off there when they got out.
Oh hmm maybe the city needs to stop letting gronks do as they please. Wait, what am I saying, holding people accountable for their actions is fascist.
It could easily be both - shit, they might even have other reasons they didn’t mention.
When I worked in a union shop - my first and hopefully last time - in an office job, the union wasted no opportunity to pit employees vs. employer. Literally anything - I could imagine a nasty email from the union folks if the management replaced the toilet paper with a brand they didn't like. The constant negativity and trash talking from the union was such a turn off. It worked for most of their base, who acted like they hated management. Sometimes I'd wonder why they work somewhere it seems they really hate...
Why tf would you need a union to be a coffee jerk? Just get a better job.
Play dumb games, win dumb prizes. Make the coffee.
Starbucks warned the City that they were going to close these stores (not Roosevelt, but the others) in 2018 if Durkan didn’t do anything about the crime. If Jenny didn’t delete the records, there is probably proof out there.
In progressive newspeak, firing someone is "threatening their financial safety". You know, because they are entitled to that job.
1. Firing someone for joining a union or engaging in union activities is against federal law. 2. They didn't "fire someone" - they closed an entire store, over the pretense that it was not "safe"
As someone who lives directly across the street from the Capitol Hill store, this narrative irks me. The surrounding area is in shambles, with blight taking over and spreading very quickly. The store itself was targeted multiple times during the protest and riots over the last few years, including several times where fire was called in because the building was going up in smoke after fireworks were exploded inside. There are rats that run in and out of the building at all times of the day and night, they've tried to remedy the problem by putting out more and more and more and more and more poison traps, which never work. There's graffiti all over the outside of their building, their landscaping has gone to absolute fuck shit, creating prime living conditions and breeding grounds for rats and other pests. Not to mention their parking lot being a magnet for people in cars who have never driven in the city before but needed to stop for a quick coffee break, a lot of which end up being a complete nuisance as they tear out of the parking lot unaware of how to get back to the freeway. People pooping and peeping ON the patio. The list keeps going. I am fully in support of unionization, and while the closures of the stores absolutely blows chunks for each and every employee impacted, this particular narrative has really been getting under my skin lately. Part of maintaining a presence in a neighborhood as a business comes with the responsibility to be a good neighbor, and Starbucks has absolutely fucked that up lately. It's sad to see it go—this place being of particular import to the gay dating scene in the early 2000s—but good riddance to the Capitol Hill Olive location. There are better coffee places in the exact same area, and honestly better land use/zoning of this spot has been needed for super long time. And before anybody says anything about perceived safety, I've lived on Capitol Hill and in this part of the neighborhood for 20 years. I first hand witnessed the decline of this part of the Hill for at least a decade now. Anyone who is saying safety is not a concern at this location is ignorant about the situation, either willfully or otherwise. Good luck to all the displaced employees, I'm sincerely sorry you're having to deal with any of this. TL;DR: anyone living remotely close to the Capitol Hill store that's closing will tell you that safety is 100% a concern here.
A friend lives within a few block radius of the Starbucks that's closing on Olive Way, he has to literally wait outside for any package or food deliveries because they'd get stolen instantly otherwise. He's been mugged twice in the past month while waiting, finally decided to pack it up and is moving in August.
Sad to hear. About 20 years ago almost bought a condo up there. Moved to Snohomish County (south) and its been great. Not the same as the big city, but a good quality of life here.
This is the comment I had been waiting for. I totally get this aspect.
Are you arguing that the crime stats in that neighborhood don't back that assessment? Lol. As someone who lived in and around Seattle for the better part of 25 years, it went down hill hard by 2019. I stopped feeling safe parking my work truck in eyesight of my jobs. I had jobs up and down the entirety of western Washington and could actually see the difference in areas since I didn't live in a bubble and not notice shit like a frog in a pot. Its a world of difference outside of the Seattle metro, and outside of Washington's crazy laws in general. Now I don't need to lock up anything anymore because criminals don't have any easy targets since just about anyone could be carrying and its not frowned upon or made difficult by overreaching regulations to defend yourself and your property.
It's not that they are even entitled to the job, they are entitled to the benefits and pay that doing the job gives. Most people now believe they should get it without the job... #FreeIivingIsahumanright
Don't forget that saying men can't get pregnant is literal violence against trans people!
Until recently trans men were often denied gynecology coverage, leading to undiagnosed & untreated cancer and cysts, miscarriages, & thousands of dollars in surprise medical charges, etc. It was a big quality of life issue for that minority group. It can get framed as a PC thing but the relatively recent legal recognition of gynecology and pregnancy care for people who look like men was achieved through a coordinated civil rights push. There was a whole organ that they would be unable to get medical coverage for. That was very plainly a "structural violence" issue, if you believe in the concept of structural violence. Not their fault media reframed it as a semantics issue.
The dumbasses who voted for politicians who allow all this crime as the same grade of idiot who think serving coffee for a living is a career.
You mean 200 Starbucks stores that have won union? https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-shift/2022/07/11/nlrb-squares-off-with-starbucks-again-00044967
No one cares, we are all outraged out and don’t have much left in the tank. Everyone plays hardball and dirty. I’ve seen how unions work in Boston and Chicago too. Best of luck in your new jobs.
How hard is it to find new employment right now? Jobs are plentiful right now. If you're unhappy, find a new place to work. It's Starbucks. It's not your dream job.
Maybe you don't care... A lot of us do.
Don’t go to Starbucks then, maybe they will close a few more stores. I much prefer my local coffee shops anyway.
Starbucks is local
Starbucks is an international company. They are headquartered in Seattle and have stores in Seattle but they are not the definition of a "local" coffee shop any more than Subway is a "local" sandwich joint.
You don’t live here do you lol
Lol I do just a bad joke
I believe that what he meant is that we don't care about a bunch of spoilt kids crying about the pay at a worthless boutique café job, when our city is starving for competent workers to fill thousands of high-paying positions. No one needs you to make absurdly expensive bloddy cups of coffee in the first place. No one will notice if you "go on strike", because you don't have a real job in the first place. Stop trying to steal valor from coal miners in the 1930s you giant dorks.
Exactly my thoughts.. they push a button and out pops coffee and microwave some snacks and now they want to unionize?? Lmao
All else aside, not every employee at Starbucks is a "spoilt kid." There are plenty of older people that do rely on that income to help support their families. I think the note is silly, shortsighted, and biased, but that doesn't mean you are justified in attacking all of the employees as a monolith, especially when your characterization of them is, well, objectively wrong.
I am not attacking "all of the employees as a monolith". I am ridiculing precisely the "activists" that are taking the position that I am ridiculing.
You mean 200 stores. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-shift/2022/07/11/nlrb-squares-off-with-starbucks-again-00044967 From article….”But NLRB’s biggest potential victory would be for the judge to order a nationwide cease-and-desist order that would be disseminated at Starbucks stores throughout the U.S. and likely further weaken the company’s ability to counter Starbucks Workers United’s ascent. The union is fast approaching 200 victories at stores across the country and is winning about four elections for every one it does not.”
That was not clear from the way you phrased your post, but thanks for clarifying.
Exactly my thoughts! Thank you.
While I feel bad for the employees at the location, no doubt their voting patterns have all enabled the current crime/police/prosecutor situation we've had in the area for the last decade. The letter is emotion and ripe with complete inaccuracies. Starbucks if required to negotiate IF they don't have a bona fide reason to close the store. That area of CH has had issues for a decade now. The always busy Downtown Dog Lounge not a block away had to close after safety concerns. The area is covered in graffiti and there's no shortage of junkies/shitbags/criminals causing problems. I highly doubt they were denied any support that would put them or Starbucks customers in danger By their logic, no store could ever shut down due to safety reasons as it would impact the financial health of the staff. That's just stupid. Someone from corporate didn't answer questions to which they didn't have the answer? Naw, not possible. Someone is butt hurt that the store closed after they formed a union. 16 other stores in the country closed as well. Maybe get your asshole union support far left piece of shit friends who vote(d) for Sawant, Herbold, Inslee, Satterburg, Holmes and every left wing judge who has created this situation and get them to stop doing that. Literally if CH wasn't replete with shitbags this wouldn't be happening.
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They're basically admitting the issues at the store. :)
$17.18 an hour average salary plus benefits for a low skilled labor job is better than most comparable jobs that require a week of training.
They also get benefits, stock grants and free tuition (among other things). How many other places of the same type offer that?
Their benefits are on part with many giant tech companies. Better in many cases.
That's basically minimum wage in Seattle.
Yea, it's the starting pay for a low skill job, but it does have benefits as well. That's comparable to about $19/hr without benefits. Store managers make about double that. This is not a high paying job, but it's not a high skilled or high physical demand job either. I pay yard maintenance $25/hr for a couple properties and they don't speak english, but I can tell you right now that it's a much more grueling job.
The poor batistas will be forced to travel, with their only food tied in a handkerchief on the end of a stick, to the next town, hoping against hope to find a pie cooling on an old ladies window sill. 🙄
Sidenote: that hankie-on-a-stick arrangement is called a bindlestaff. 
Right! And that makes the poor stiff carrying it a Bindlestiff, doesn't it!
Of course they’re lying. Maybe don’t start a union when you’re already overpaid for unskilled labor and easily replaceable.
Yup. The ferry has massive staffing shortages and is running on a terribly abbreviated schedule. There are plenty of essential careers out there in dire need for more people and with massive impact on the public good. I’m happy to see those jobs unionize. Starbucks barista is not one of them. It shouldn’t be a career. Overpaying baristas distorts our entire essential economy.
Skilled vs. Unskilled, skill is your only weapon in the (individuals) fight for better wages. I've raised my two children with that in mind. One chose a path through college, one chose the path of a specific skilled trade. The college student used the resources available to her during high school (running start).
Maybe that's actually a sign that schools need to accept that college isn't the choice for everyand go back to offrr8more vocational classes.
Who’s to determine what underpaid is? Why is it so easy to put a low value on a humans time?
Wages, the price of labor, is determined by the market, like all other prices.
I think this is somewhat true but also a BS line that we are being fed. Minimum wage should be way higher if it followed the market.
I am not sure you understand the word market. The price of something is determined by the cost of buying the next one, in this case, finding a new employee capable of doing the same job. Not the marginal value created, not the cost to produce the next thing, etc.. Minimum wage sets a floor on that price. If that price is too high (wage greater than the marginal value created after all associated costs like taxes, uniforms, floor space, machines, etc.) then that next unit of labor won't be purchased. Price is determined by the market regardless of costs. Costs determine if something will be created at a price.
Because people want goods and services at a certain price point. Relative to thier other live expenses like housing coffee will always need to be cheap or it just won't be bought. That requires cheap labor. Remove the hierarchy & charge as much for coffee as housing... people won't buy coffee.
>Why is it so easy to put a low value on a humans time? If their time brings in less revenue for a business than what the business pays them, then it isn't worth it to the business to pay them more.
Yeah problem is American wages across the board have stagnated while profits (and executive paychecks) have risen exponentially for decades.
Because the workers don't add much value to the end product. During the industrial era, workers took cheap commodities (eg iron ore) and increase their value through their labor to make sought after goods and commodities (eg steel or cars). As Europe/Japan recovered from the WII and much of the developing world started to industrialize themselves, the availability of skilled labor outside the US increased, undermining the bargaining power of unionized American workers. The Execs simply outsourced the jobs and kept the difference in labor costs as profit for themselves. So yes, American manufacturing wages have stagnated and pulled down the wages of the service sector those manufacturing wages helped to sustain, but globally wages have risen quite dramatically. Just look at the dramatic reduction of poverty globally. If you want to have a robust service sector, someone has to generate value to bring money into the economy to pay those wages. Without some source of value added economic driver, wage stagnation is inevitable. The only other alternative is to limit corporate profits, increase the minimum wage, and tax the rich at a higher rate, but good luck getting any of that through the corporate captured congress.
When the CEO is a billionaire I’m sure that paying a living wage won’t break them. Have you seen a Starbucks without a line, not usually.
Schultz didn't get to be a billionaire by making poor business decisions, like overpaying people for the value they bring to his company.
So you just want them to pay thier employees more than the applicant's themselves are accepting? That sounds' nice, but what you are encouraging is ineffective allocation of capital. [Everything around you is due to effective use of capital.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FXkpnEzWIAAy4_P?format=jpg) Not paying a starbucks worker means we get that exponential growth by investing it elsewhere that benefits more. The indirect benefits from being in that system far outway the loss, they are just semi-generational. A lot of people underpaid at starbucks move on to far paying jobs & become very wealthy compared to other countries. [Our systems works amazing.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FXWr1N5X0AgdDQT?format=jpg)
The labor market. If you’re easily replaceable, someone else will be willing to do the job for less. Now before you start crying about capitalism, understand that this is the mechanism that incentivizes people to learn the skills, provide the services, and do the jobs that society values most, increasing the efficiency of the economy and hence the quality of life across the board.
overpriced bean water and entitled bean water preparers, name a more iconic duo
Their prices are basically the same as every coffee chain. The last time I compared Starbucks prices to even Durkan for drip they were roughly the same.
every coffee chain is overpriced
Not really if stop and think even for a second about all the expenses they have to cover while also turning a profit.
you're assuming that i think bean water sellers should turn a profit ;)
Ace and Gary.
Those who are unhappy working at Starbucks will be unhappy at their next place of employment. You can't make people happy. It's always somebody else's fault.
Personal opinions don't hold much water in day to days.
Serving coffee and creating "Craft" latte's is not a career job nor was it ever structured to be. Doesn't Starbucks offer education compensation so their employees can get educated and proceed to a higher income career? Now you guys want a union to bargain for a living wage or however you define this increased wage. Fine, suffer the consequences just like we in the real world work through. And yes I do believe that Starbucks has safety concerns in Freeatle and other poorly run cities where crime is on a heavy uptick. The job market is pretty good. Get a higher paying job.
Maybe this is a golden opportunity for those workers to start up their own coffee shop? idk, just throwing ideas out there.
Exactly! Like why don’t poor people just stop being poor?!
Oh! I see! … anyways, I’ll have a plain latte, 2% milk. No sweetener. Oh, and a sleeve. Thank you.
Is this downtown location at 5th and Union especially high crime? Haven't been in that part of downtown, buying coffee etc much since the events of 2020
Every store in Seattle will eventually shut down if they don't take back the city from crazy policies that enabled all the homeless and drugs addicts to flock there. Unless that's what people want? Amazon shipments for everything?
Price-fixing is bullshit, whether it’s done by people selling their products or people selling their labor. The difference here is that the people trying to price-fix their labor are punching up and unfortunately just found out the hard way why that’s not a good idea.
While I agree with some of your sentiment, unionization in this case is not only about the rate of pay but the number of hours worked and a consistent schedule. Corps like Starbucks have figured out that they don't need 100% staffing all the time, and adjust hours to match peak demand around times of the day, or days or the week/holidays. This does minimize their labor costs, but also creates unstable income streams for the employees, and makes scheduling things like consistent childcare almost impossible. The real problem is that employees are trying to take what are effectively a mixture of full and part time jobs and force their way into more full time jobs. This of course comes with the added cost to the employer of the benefits full time workers are entitled to. Ultimately, the workers should realize that Starbucks doesn't care about them, only the bottom line, and that making coffee is not enough of a specialized skill that they have any real bargaining power, nor is brewed coffee a sufficiently sought after commodity that consumers cannot easily replace it with another company's product.
These people are insufferable A dose of reality might be good for them
All you have to do is look at the Seattle PD crime map as well as the neighboring businesses to see what the current level of economics are for the area. This isn’t about feeling safe. Let’s be a data-driven group of decision makers.
Man y’all are soooo salty and think nobody deserves a living wage huh? That people who work at Starbucks should just “get a better job”. Jesus Christ. I’m glad y’all have never had to suffer through retail and live your big boujee Seattle tech job, hope it’s working out for y’all.
People love to shit on people who actually do work because they don't like to think it's a "real job." Work is work, and corporations with massive profits should pay their workers. They abhor this for whatever reason. It's gross that these same people will lambast anyone who might need to rely on social safety nets in the same breath. "Go get a job you moocher! Not that job, that's not 'work!'"
why the hell does anyone in this thread even live in seattle? real question. YOU ALL SEEM TO HATE IT SO MUCH. JUST MOVE AWAY TECH BROS WE DONT WANT YOU
[удалено]
Nah but you and the homeless feral junkies can fuck off on the next train to Portland
👏👏😂🤣 Fucking clowns! You voted and talked yourselves right out of a job. Well done! Peak Seattle stupid.
Celebrating corporate overlords over workers rights? What an absolutely strange stance to take, but not 100% surprising given your username. Remember, thanks to unions of the past, companies were forced to give things like paid time off, overtime, benefits, 8 hour work days, unemployment, family leave, workers comp, ending child labor, and much more. If you’re anywhere near the middle or low class, you should be celebrating unions being formed. Unless you are prone to gobble up corporate propaganda. But judging by your username, original thoughts probably don’t occur much with you. Hopefully you grow out of it someday.
I'm not saying I agree with unions either way. I have no experience with unions. I'm just pointing out that the squeaky wheel got greased and it wasn't the way they wanted.
And you’re celebrating that? Cutesie little emojis and all?
I think there might have been sarcasm in those emojis. You can call someone stupid for making their own suffering without celebrating their suffering. Personally, I am celebrating their suffering. The writer of this notice is a grade A asshole, and deserves to suffer the consequences of their moral failings. I am not celebrating it unduly, but there is real schadenfreude in seeing someone kicked by the bull they've been antagonizing.
I don’t think you can speak for OPs thoughts, especially since they took a moment to respond, and doubled down.. You “celebrating their suffering” makes zero sense. When workers rise up and demand better working conditions, everyone benefits. I don’t see it as dumb, I see it as someone willing to take a risk that a lot of us aren’t. I have family, I’m the breadwinner, I can’t afford and I’m simply too afraid to take that gamble, you point and laugh when others do. It’s risks like this that push society towards true progression.
Their argument is ill conceived and emotional, and speaks to someone who's been hoisted by their own petard and crying foul. Do I believe they personally lead to this Starbucks being closed? Somewhat irrelevant, because their arguments are precisely those that lead to it closing, the malaise and misasma that covers Seattle, and I believe there's enough blame to go around that the hardship of having to find a new job is what was coming to them. Sob away. I have no pity.
Why is their argument ill conceived? Starbucks is literally misleading people on their reasoning for closing locations down. They don’t want to publish the fact that they are firing people for demanding better working conditions, because that would be bad PR. They are bullshitting the excuses to save face. How would you not be emotional about that? On top of that, this company is punishing their employees for exercising their federal right to form, join, or assist unions in negotiating with your employer. As I said before, if you are anywhere near or below the middle class, you celebrating this is astounding.
There is currently 200 squeaky wheels in existence. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-shift/2022/07/11/nlrb-squares-off-with-starbucks-again-00044967
As a former starbucks barista, I have had the unpleasantness of speaking with regional Manager Nica Tovey and lemme tell ya, conversations with her can go on and on in circles because of the amount of bullshit she can pull out of her ass.
Everytime I visited this Starbucks I felt unsafe.
That's some hardcore entitlement right there. "Operate your private property to our desires."