Starbucks told to pay $100 million for giving baristas' tips to bosses

[Kadie]

Starbucks told to pay $100 million for giving baristas' tips to bosses
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, March 20, 2008

(03-20) 17:36 PDT SAN DIEGO -- A San Diego judge ordered Starbucks to pour more than $100 million into the accounts of its low-wage coffee-servers in California today after ruling that the company had improperly required the workers to share tips with their bosses.

Superior Court Judge Patricia Cowett ruled Feb. 28 that Starbucks' shift supervisors were managers in the company, and therefore ineligible to be paid out of the tip jar. Today she assessed the damages: $86.7 million, plus 7 percent annual interest, for all servers - known as baristas - who have worked at any of the chain's 1,400 California stores since Oct. 8, 2000.

Plaintiffs' lawyers said the grand total was $105.8 million. They can seek additional amounts in attorneys' fees.

Cowett also said she would issue an injunction prohibiting Starbucks from allowing shift supervisors to share in the tip pool, the company's practice until now.

more...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/20/BAGAVNG6O.DTL&tsp=1

[babylonsister]

1. Good. Because greed and ripping off workers isn't. nt

[madrchsod]

2. i thought starbucks was one of those "cool companies"

nope just another corporations screwing their employees anyway than can..

[derby378]

5. I've come to realize...

...that a "cool company" doesn't charge you $1.50 for a plastic bottle of water and then tell you that a tiny fraction of that purchase will go to make sure people have clean drinking water worldwide.

This is why I try to carry a Sigg bottle wherever I go now. Just point me towards a clean water fountain and y'all can keep your fancy bottled H2O.

[Wcross]

8. They are just another chain store operator selling overpriced coffee.

I guess it is "cool" they can charge so much for a cup of coffee.

[derby378]

3. w00t!

Seriously, what genius thought up this idea? "Say, why don't we strongarm the baristas into sharing their tips with management?"

:mad:

[girl gone mad]

7. Someone looking for a way to cut costs..

and get the share price up a little bit higher. This way they can pay the managers less.

[Donnachaidh]

10. that's so incredibly TACKY to even think about!

Can you imagine a manager at a restaurant trying to strongarm a share of the tips from the waitstaff? That restaurant would quickly lose the working staff, and no DECENT help would work for them once the word got out.

They should Stick Starbucks for more than that amount. Call it an Ebenezer charge - for being cheap, tacky and STUPID enough to think they could get away with that.

[pitohui]

22. i can easily imagine, here's a story from the 1930s

during the great depression my uncle wanted to work as a busboy or a waiter (no longer remember which and he has since passed on) to a very fine restaurant in a snooty southern town known for its fine restaurants (not new orleans where my family's history doesn't go back so far)

not only did he have to work for ZERO pay from the restaurant, everything from tips, but if he wanted to get/keep the job he had to pay a bribe to a manager there

i'm glad starbucks was called on it, bribing managers to get/keep jobs an ugly practice that doesn't need to return to america

[marmar]

4. Unbelievable....

I think I've purchased my last tall soy latte from 'Bucks.

:argh:

[rfranklin]

6. Now i don't feel so guilty about stealing the tip jar....

I think of myself as a modern Robin Hood.

[Spiffarino]

9. I'm guessing...

:sarcasm:?

[Elspeth]

11. Shift supervisors, if they're good, are working--covering the counter during busy times

and making lattes when the lines get too long. They deal with customer complaints and keep the schedules. They are hardly "management" in the corporate sense of the word. I don't mind them getting a tip as well.

[seaglass]

15. Agreed. I've rarely been in my local Starbucks when everyone

wasn't working either making drinks, working the register, grinding coffee, replacing cream/milk, sweeping floors etc. If one of those people is a supervisor s/he is doing everything a front line employee is doing.

[LostinVA]

17. Without shift supervisors getting tips, the regular workers will now make more than them

I'd rather have less responsibility for more pay, personally.

And, Starbucks shift supervisors AREN'T managers.

[Matariki]

12. I wonder what the shift managers are paid, and whether they also pull espresso.

[mondo joe]

20. Me too. My guess would be they're right there doing the same work, and then having

additional responsibilities as well. I've never been in a Starbucks where the manager wasn't pulling shots and serving.

[jmowreader]

13. Isn't "tip pooling" fairly common in the foodservice industry?

Tip pooling is where all tipped employees are required to pay in their tips, which are equally divided among all employees. This keeps restaurant owners from having to cover the spread between tip + salary and minimum wage differently for each employee. Or at all, which is the grand hope of restauranteurs-who-do-this everywhere.

You know what would REALLY suck? And what I'm afraid is actually happening here? That Starbucks is paying its shift supervisors the tipped-employee minimum wage. Obviously they're over there serving coffee--there's no way they could get out of it, not with the way foodservice establishments staff these days. If they're serving coffee in an establishment that allows tipping, they're getting tips. You know they are. How would YOU like to be a shift supervisor for, essentially, minimum wage plus whatever you could squeeze out of the clientele?

[LostinVA]

18. Starbucks pays several dollars above the minimum non-tipped employee wage as starting pay

[pitohui]

24. no you don't tip out managers!

big difference between tipping out the bartender who fixes your drinks and the bus person who clears your table -- and tipping out the supervisor who is setting vacations, schedules, making your performance rankings and so on

if you have to tip out a supervisor it's going to lead to corruption and work place politics bullshit, it can't help but do so

and in the case of starbucks, since only idiots tip for going to a counter and getting their own damn coffee, no one is getting a restaurant's min. wage of around $2-plus an hour, as another poster said, the base pay is not the min. (nor do i think it should be the min), but the point is the tips are not much to begin with and to have them taken away and split with managers too...just ugh

[Echo In Light]

14. So that Austin Powers movie was right: evil henchmen using it as a front

[ellisonz]

16. FU Starbucks.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

19. Shift supervisors

Every time I drive by a fast food place, it has a sign announcing that they are now hiring "managers".

Often, in food service, a management title is bestowed on someone because that allows the to work up to 45hrs a week with no overtime. They might get a little more hourly, but they probably would have been better off if they didn't have the fake "management" title.

I don't know, but I bet the shift supervisors got a title and a different name badge but did essentially the same work as every grunt barista. The ONLY reason to be a shift supervisor would be if you also got a cut of the tips.

Now, if they are back room managers who play on their computers all day answering countless corporate emails from headquarters demanding to know how many coffee beans fell on the floor that week, that would be a different story. They would have no claim to any tips. Anyone who has not worked for a corporate food company has no idea how tiresome they are. I guess the good news is maybe this will cause them to rethink some of their policies.

[LostinVA]

21. Shift supervisors do the same work as baristas

They might direct things a bit, but they don't do any real managing. Also, just because somebody is a shift supervisor, doesn't mean they'll be a shift supervisor for every shift they work.

[pitohui]

23. really then who is managing?

i don't buy that no one is on site at all times managing the job, and that person doing the hands-on front-line managing is the shift supervisor

i don't think it's too much to expect managers to pitch in and help out when the place is busy

i've had managers pitch in and help out when i waited tables, no way did they expect to grab my tips when they did

their benefits come from their profit sharing or other bonus they receive from having a well run restaurant, something i as a waiter never received

[lumberjack_jeff]

25. Doing many of the same tasks isn't the issue.

If one of the employees is told to direct the activities of the others, then (s)he's the manager.

If the issue is that the manager will make less than the managee if they don't get the tips, a bright person with a calculator and the authority to give raises could probably find a solution.