Democracy for Vancouver

Starbucks over-expanded and feel the crunch of an ailing economy. Their solution? A massive, newsmaking public relations stunt, ostensibly to re-train and strategize.
The IWW Starbucks Workers Union smells a rat and tells it like it is:

Starbucks Baristas Question Substance of National Shutdown for “Training”

New York, NY- As Starbucks stores around the United States reopen after a three hour shutdown to train employees, baristas of the IWW Starbucks Workers Union are calling into question the efficacy of the event. Union baristas left the “training” feeling like it was a public relations event directed at consumers rather than a bona fide attempt to improve drink quality or customer service.

“The whole thing seemed a little silly to me,” said Starbucks barista Peter Montalbano on his way out of the training. “We supposedly learned how to build a latte ‘from the espresso up,’- but we’re still pulling shots from a push-button espresso machine and pouring them into paper cups for not much above the minimum wage. It’s difficult to imagine people really caring about crafting the ‘perfect cappuccino’ if they can’t even afford to pay their bills.”

The union argues that the decline of customer service at Starbucks stems from understaffed and underpaid baristas, not a lack of training. To save on labor costs, Starbucks degraded all the barista jobs to part-time, low-wage positions and doesn’t schedule enough workers to promptly meet customer demand. And while the world’s largest coffee chain would like to differentiate itself from McDonald’s, it shares the burger giant’s enormous animosity to labor unions.

Many baristas believe that the national shutdown was an attempt by recently returned CEO Howard Shultz to revamp the company’s decaying image after a plunging stock price, sluggish same-store sales numbers, and a leaked memo from Mr. Shultz himself about the watering-down of the “Starbucks Experience” threw the company into a tailspin

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