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If you haven’t already heard, Starbucks has been ordered to pay out over $100 million in tips to the baristas. You know what they are, right? These are the people who do the work making the fine, great tasting coffee that you buy at Starbucks each day. The problem is that instead of paying the shift supervisors the wages they deserve, they required the baristas to share their tips. How cheap can they actually get???? Are they serious???
I know that Starbucks is a well loved name in coffee places but this is ridiculous. The judge in California awarded the baristas their tips back plus interest and that was as it should be. And when I got to the news story on this, I was appalled that many of the comments were against the lawsuit. Come on!!! The company was stealing the tips from the guys and gals that actually did the work and giving it to the shift supervisors who should have been on salary anyway. Why on earth are people against the baristas who make the coffee that they drink in the first place? They were the ones stolen from, after all.
The question I continue to ask is…how cheap can a company actually get??? Well, now let’s see, the company took in $9.4 billion dollars last year, profits of $672 million. HELLO!! I think they could afford to PAY their shift supervisors, don’t you? Frankly, I do not see wanting to go into a Starbucks after that. SHAME ON YOU, Starbucks!!! Shame!
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I have to disagree here. Based on what I’ve read about the role of the Shift Supervisors, they deserve the tips as much as the other baristas.
The shift supervisors aren’t sitting in the office doing paperwork the whole time; they’re not salaried managers.
They are out on the bar doing the same work as the regualr baristas. They are baristas with just a couple extra responsibilities. What you said about the baristas (”These are the people who do the work making the fine, great tasting coffee that you buy at Starbucks each day. “) is just as true about the shift supervisors.
Their job is just tippable as the baristas.
In addition to serving as baristas, they can open the safe, count out registers, and do similar things. They are not store managers or assistant managers.
Starbucks wasn’t taking money from the baristas; none of that money went back to corporate, the shareholders, or even the store managers. It was just shared among all the baristas — which includes shift supervisors.
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Shift managers have more responsibilities. They should be salaried people and not getting the tips. Starbucks is obviously incredibly cheap or they would pay their shift people better.
I should also like to point out this tiny, obviously not seen problem….why is STARBUCKS dictating who gets the tips and where they go. Those tips belong to the people who earn them. They should not be dictated by the company.
How do I know this? Because I used to work in a job where tips were almost all of my pay. Those tips were all I had to live on. If Starbucks pays like that, and it would seem that they do or the shift people would not need the tips that badly, as much PROFIT as they get every year, they are the CHEAPEST company on the planet or close to it.
I have no love lost for Starbucks who will not pay their shift “supervisors” what they should get. Did you see the word SUPERVISOR? Traditionally, in companies that have supervisors, those people are responsible parties. They are managers of a sort. They are responsible for the shift, thus being called SHIFT SUPERVISORS.
If Starbucks is only giving them the title, adding a few jobs but not giving the people what they deserve then there should be more lawsuits coming.
It sounds to me like Starbucks wants the fame, the money, the work from the peons and dictate how people get and give their tips. Brother. And you think this is alright? I do not. They deserve that lawsuit.
You are right in one thing. The shift supervisors are getting the shaft. They should want more money for the jobs they do instead of robbing others of the tips that STARBUCKS dictated.
Thanks for commenting.