Starbucks - Just Another Greedy Corporation

I'm beginning to wonder if there are any corporations left that believe in treating their employees fairly and paying them decently. It looks like we can add Starbucks to the list of corporations who squeeze every dime they can from employees, so the owners and management can live high-off-the-hog.

Traditionally, waitresses and waiters in restaurants, diners and coffee shops are the lowest-paid employees, and their wages are supplemented by tips (or gratuities) given to them by the customers. But Starbucks devised a scheme to underpay even more of their employees.

They decided to also underpay the supervisors, and then force the waitresses (or baristas as they call them) to supplement the supervisor's salaries by making them share their tips. There was only one problem with their miserly plan -- it's against the law (at least in California).

One barista took them to court, and a California judge turned it into a class-action suit. The judge ordered Starbucks to return $106 million dollars in tips and back interest to present and former baristas in California. Starbucks has said they will appeal the verdict because "the interests of the shift supervisors were not represented in litigation".

I don't believe for a second that Starbucks is worried about the poor shift supervisors. The greedy bastards just want the baristas to pay them so they won't have to do it.

As the plaintiff's attorney said, "Starbucks illegally took a huge amount of money from the tip pool to pay shift supervisors, rather than paying them out of its own pocket. The court's verdict rightfully restores that money to the baristas."

There should be a law like this in every state. When I tip a waiter or waitress, I expect them to keep every penny of it. They're the ones who earned it -- not their boss.