Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

storewanderer
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 11:40 am
storewanderer wrote: September 3rd, 2022, 10:33 am As long as the new Concord store doesn't call for a union the area will be safe enough.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
I can only state the obvious...

I'd be interested to see how they'd behave if it was Teamsters doing the organizing like it is for Chipotle...

Now that Howard is being replaced with an outside hire again... this is a hopeless path... cannot see how this company can calm its upset workforce on its own... I had confidence in Howard's abilities to get in there and make changes but now he is being replaced with an outside hire....????? These outside hires never understand Starbucks and always screw it up.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by storewanderer »

Starbucks is reportedly closing additional stores due to "safety" reasons.

I pulled the location closing in downtown Spokane, WA up and see multiple dated photos from a while ago showing multiple homless occupying the majority of the tables inside. This location also reportedly had a Union effort going on.

From reading recent reviews it sounds like the location has been drive through only for the present time.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by babs »

storewanderer wrote: October 22nd, 2022, 1:33 am Starbucks is reportedly closing additional stores due to "safety" reasons.

I pulled the location closing in downtown Spokane, WA up and see multiple dated photos from a while ago showing multiple homless occupying the majority of the tables inside. This location also reportedly had a Union effort going on.

From reading recent reviews it sounds like the location has been drive through only for the present time.
The location in Portland's Pearl District on Lovejoy street closed yesterday due to safety issues. It's in an upscale area but both the Starbucks and nearby Safeway attract the homeless who live nearby under the freeway.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by storewanderer »

babs wrote: October 22nd, 2022, 7:43 pm
The location in Portland's Pearl District on Lovejoy street closed yesterday due to safety issues. It's in an upscale area but both the Starbucks and nearby Safeway attract the homeless who live nearby under the freeway.
I guess the issues can transfer entirely to the location inside Safeway. It seems like that Safeway has done okay... kept various upscale items/features...

What will be funny is in the coming years when Starbucks re-enters many of these locations they've closed or in very close proximity of them.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by storewanderer »

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/02/business ... exis-rizzo

Fired for attendance issues and seems to basically admit it in the article. Due to closing one night and having to open the next morning but doesn't explicitly say that happened in this example.

Starbucks states the employee arriving late caused the store to open an hour late. That will get someone fired at just about any business... union or not...
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by mburb1981 »

The Starbucks at Woodward & Mack in midtown Detroit closed back on February 13 directly due to safety issues. This is in a semi-upscale area with a Whole Foods just behind the now-closed location and a development with a small-format Target about to break ground across the street, but employees reported numerous safety concerns, including theft and threats of violence, which led to the location's demise.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: April 3rd, 2023, 7:05 pm https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/02/business ... exis-rizzo

Fired for attendance issues and seems to basically admit it in the article. Due to closing one night and having to open the next morning but doesn't explicitly say that happened in this example.

Starbucks states the employee arriving late caused the store to open an hour late. That will get someone fired at just about any business... union or not...
And if this was a real union then they would care just as much about upholding the rules and applying them fairly as anything else. They would have a rep sitting there during the termination nodding their head as the boss explains why they were let go for attendance.

I read this article about how the Union figured out Starbucks would be a good organization to infiltrate, then got their paid people hired to do the job. Not sure how I feel about this. I can see why Schultz pushes back so hard, he doesn't believe that the Union represents truly unhappy employees. I don't want to call out specific people but I am aware of one of these workers who befriended employees at multiple locations then unionized their own store - and got themselves fired somewhat intentionally to stir the flames further and convince friends at other stores to unionize in retaliation for their "firing". The entire time they were collecting a paycheck from the union as well as Starbucks. It just doesn't smell right to me after reading this article (if you can figure out how to get around the free article limit pay wall).

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... over-salts

I have a close family friend who spent over a decade at Starbucks as both a regular worker and a supervisor. Their experience is that Starbucks changed in three ways that make it less pleasant these says, but none of these can be fixed by a union. First, drinks have become more complicated as Starbucks embraces customization as their way of standing out vs competitors (really can't change that or lose business). Second, as customers embraced mobile ordering the need for cashiers has been reduced and those positions were shifted (note not cut) to different roles like coordinating mobile orders which are more challenging (again can't turn the clock back). Finally the customer demands drive thru service, so Starbucks is aggressively relocating in-line stores to drive thru as soon as a site is available, sometimes within a year of major remodels of the existing store - and work in drive thru is much more difficult than a standalone store because you're servicing two groups of customers simultaneously (but it's what the customer wants and makes more money for the company - plus ironically when an in-line relocates to a drive thru the hours and headcounts go up).
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by pseudo3d »

ClownLoach wrote: April 4th, 2023, 10:59 am
storewanderer wrote: April 3rd, 2023, 7:05 pm https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/02/business ... exis-rizzo

Fired for attendance issues and seems to basically admit it in the article. Due to closing one night and having to open the next morning but doesn't explicitly say that happened in this example.

Starbucks states the employee arriving late caused the store to open an hour late. That will get someone fired at just about any business... union or not...
And if this was a real union then they would care just as much about upholding the rules and applying them fairly as anything else. They would have a rep sitting there during the termination nodding their head as the boss explains why they were let go for attendance.

I read this article about how the Union figured out Starbucks would be a good organization to infiltrate, then got their paid people hired to do the job. Not sure how I feel about this. I can see why Schultz pushes back so hard, he doesn't believe that the Union represents truly unhappy employees. I don't want to call out specific people but I am aware of one of these workers who befriended employees at multiple locations then unionized their own store - and got themselves fired somewhat intentionally to stir the flames further and convince friends at other stores to unionize in retaliation for their "firing". The entire time they were collecting a paycheck from the union as well as Starbucks. It just doesn't smell right to me after reading this article (if you can figure out how to get around the free article limit pay wall).

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features ... over-salts
You can read the article here:
https://archive.is/ifl0W

This article is one reason why unions have a bad reputation and brings back decades-old depictions of unions being basically groups of thugs using underhanded methods to get what they want. The history of organized labor in the United States is complicated and was rife with illegal tactics and violence, and as a result it is difficult to paint labor unions as "good" or "bad".
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by storewanderer »

I'm okay with unions as long as they have zero involvement in politics. That isn't how it works so there is a problem. I do not see anything getting better for workers either despite unions and their politics. It just keeps getting harder for workers and easier for the biggest corporations. These fly by night unions like the Starbucks one, I have no clue who funds them or how they got started. They strike me as a dark money group of some sort. At least if it was an established union you could say their benefit plans could provide some serious help to the employees represented.

As far as Starbucks goes they need to get some control over order customization. There are too many wild things going on making it too difficult for staff. Mobile orders are supposed to make it easier not harder.

I also think Starbucks drive through should probably be mobile order only.
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Re: Starbucks Closing Some Stores Nationwide Due To Safety

Post by veteran+ »

You both make some valid points.

Let's just get rid of them (Unions) and let all those employees trust and work with their HR person. That has really worked well for the American worker writ large and the disappearing "true" Middle Class. They just have to trust their C-Suite gang will do the right thing for their most valueable "asset" (the employee).

And let's not forget that employees have done so well to individually better their status for the past 40 years.

Unions are so imperfect unlike Corporations (and companies) that are perfect and always take care of their employees with the backing of the Law which is also always taking care of employees.
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