Thousands of unionized Starbucks workers will walk off their jobs on Thursday, with the one-day work stoppages coming to protest the company's stance with shops that voted to organize, according to Starbucks Workers United.
The labor action is timed to for Starbucks' Red Cup Day, an annual event in which the coffee giant hands out holiday-themed reusable cups. Starbucks has refused to negotiate in good faith over staffing and other issues that are particularly acute during promotions, according to the union.
"Starbucks is creating unnecessarily stressful working conditions by scheduling promotion after promotion without increasing staffing," Neha Cremin, a Starbucks worker in Oklahoma City, said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. "Starbucks has made it clear that they won't listen to workers, so we're advocating for ourselves by going on strike."
The point is that they can't afford to shaft anyone because they're local (ie your goddamn neighbours), so yes, you end up paying closer to the true price for your cup of coffee. Increase that even more if they ensure their produce is certified and actually equitably sourced.
Big franchises screw over others because they can afford to scale to such a degree that no one can compete with their margins and cost savings from vertical integrations.