Workers at the historic first Starbucks store are seeking to unionize as the coffee retail giant and its union appear stalemated over their first contract.
The first Starbucks store opened in 1971 in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, and the store serves as a tourist site in Seattle.
Nailah Diaz, a Starbucks barista for about five years, three of those at Pike Place, said the Pike Place store can often have lines out the door, with waits up to two hours for tourists to come inside and look around.
She said workers at Pike Place are tasked with greater customer service responsibilities and the significant tourist traffic can bring about issues with disruptive customers and safety.
OK, corporate, what’s your game plan?
In response to the Pike’s Place location’s union drive, Anderson said the workers at the store earn more than typical Starbucks workers and that not all workers at the store are supportive of the union.
“More than typical,” eh? So, are we talking a living wage, or like 15 cents an hour more? Because people don’t unionize for no reason. It’s a lot of fucking work.
Seattle has one of the highest minimum wages in the country because the city council very reasonably tied it to inflation years ago.
They don’t earn more because of some grand largesse from corporate. They earn more because Starbucks has to pay them that by law. Seattle is fucking expensive as hell to live in and the local city council had a spark of sanity a decade back.
Minimum wage is current slightly over $21/hr (roughly $45k/yr for someone full time), and its still not enough to live in the city where the median income is $118k/yr per household.
I worked at the Greenlake Starbucks when starting out in college in the '90s. Pretty sweet gig, actually … the pay was OK, I guess, but at the end of the night, any pastries or Odwallas that were expiring were fair game. My god, do I love me some unpasteurized orange juice.
The atmosphere was chill, management didn’t micromanage, and it was overall a pleasant experience that included lots of free muffins and orange juice. I think we still had Arabian Mocha Sanani as an option for the weekly free beans.
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