Starbucks employees are getting more pay and new benefits, but some are only going to baristas that haven’t unionized. A National Labor Relations Board judge previously found that similar moves by Starbucks violate federal labor law, with the company appealing the decision.
The question of which workers get what perks and benefits has been one part of a bitter fight between Starbucks and union organizers across the country. Since the first location voted to unionize nearly two years ago, Starbucks has fought aggressively against the union drive. The NLRB has said that in some cases, the company engaged in illegal practices, with Starbucks refuting these claims.
As of mid-October, nearly 360 stores had voted in favor of a union, with the results certified by the NLRB. About 70 voted against, with those results certified. There are roughly 9,300 company-operated Starbucks locations in the United States.
Starbucks is really trying hard to ruin the reputation they built over the last 30 years. This is the reason i don't go to Starbucks anymore.
That and a business model that essentially ran every mom and pop shop out of business
Yep they’ve always been dystopian. The Walmart of coffee
Eh, I don't think this really tracks all that well. While it may vary by location, there are countless independent and small cafés in pretty much every city I've ever lived in. They generally have focus on having actually good coffee over the Starbucks style of ash water with syrup, but those are pretty distinct markets anyway.
It's probably more true in small towns/villages than in larger areas.
America really needs to create policies that make it harder for big businesses to compete against small businesses.
deleted by creator
McD's coffee is really good. They changed it a bunch of years ago, and it got so much better. It's my personal favorite for drive-thru coffee.
They bought out the old Tim Horton supplier. Now TH is trash.
Really? I never knew that. With that in mind, I now understand why the People of the North loved Tim Horton's so much, and have vocally lamented its decline in quality.
Edit: Seems like the reason I didn't know that is because it's not true.
It's farther up in the chain. They got the better beans. I watched some food documentary on it years ago, so I can't give better details. What I recall is TH got the old board swap. New team wants to increase profits, so they look for cheaper beans. McD steps in via their supply chain and pays the farmers more so wins the long term contract on the beans that were going to TH. TH got their cheap beans they wanted from some other source. McD got the higher quality beans that used to go to the TH supply chain.
None of that is what you originally said. McDonald's did not "[buy] out the old Tim Horton supplier."
McDonald's doesn't roast its own coffee beans, either, the supplier does - which means that McDonald's doesn't pay the farmers anything. Maybe the supplier got the beans, but even so, the roasting process is different, the brewing process is different, the grinding process is probably different. Not the same coffee.
In one of the links above, it's stated that McDonald's Canada gets its already roasted beans from Mother Parkers (where TH got their beans prior to 2009). Many other places report that McDonald's gets its coffee from Gaviña.
deleted by creator
I feel like Starbucks is bad coffee. It's an excellent coffee-flavored carrier for syrups and creams, so if you want a dessert drink, it's great. But if all you want is coffee, it's flat burnt shit.
I've had an Americano from Starbucks (espresso, water, nothing else) and it was fine.
I wouldn't get regular black coffee from any chain place, though. Drip coffee in particular is just nasty, sometimes even through trying to mask it with cream and sugar.
Starbucks is pretty bad coffee. Beans are mid, their roast is terrible and everything tastes burned unless you layer it in whip and syrup.
And its highly over caffinated compred to normal coffee so if you do go to sbux, any coffee you get elsewhere is sure to not feel like enough chemically. Their decaf coffee can contain as much caffien as some caffinated teas.
It's $5 of milk and sugar with a splash of McDonald's coffee.
Reputation? Haven't they always been the McDonald's of caffeinated milkshakes?
They had a reputation for years of being a decent company. This was a decade ago though. They must have hired a new PR firm since then.
Could it have been more than two decades ago?
No, it was during the mid 2000 era. I remember it as being one of the few part time jobs that would offer health benefits, and most of my friends who worked there were head over heels about it. I think they also had other perks that some employees enjoyed, like free bags of coffee.
We had a local coffee shop where high school students hung out and had local bands play. I was there most weekends in the late 90s, and I remember people complaining about how Starbucks had shitty coffee and what a chode the manager was. I never worked at either Starbucks or the local places, but I had friends that did, and that probably colored my perception of the company.