<story><title>Starbucks illegally withheld raises and tips from union workers, NLRB says</title><url>https://perfectunion.us/starbucks-nlrb-credit-card-tip-complaint/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hiddencost</author><text>First, for the record, any claims that unions make this process harder is a lie designed by a union busting consulting firm.&lt;p&gt;Second:&lt;p&gt;(1) any change to the contract has to be approved by the union. That includes raises and the like, yes.
(2) that can literally be an email from Starbucks to the union&amp;#x27;s lawyer saying &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re making these changes&amp;quot; and an email back from the union lawyer saying &amp;quot;cool, sounds good&amp;quot;.
(3) union lawyers work for the union members. They almost never have a reason to reject a purely positive change, and turn-around for simple positive changes can be 24 hours easily
(4) if the union wants more, they&amp;#x27;ll still accept the positive change and then separately negotiate an even larger change.&lt;p&gt;If there&amp;#x27;s an active strike negotiation going on, the company may not want to give an intermediate positive change because it weakens their bargaining power.&lt;p&gt;If the change is a mix of positive and negative, things may go differently.</text></item><item><author>sokoloff</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m clearly no expert in labor law, but isn&amp;#x27;t the entire point of unionization that the company has to negotiate significant changes in contract and benefits terms with the union? As a lay person, that seems like the first principles of what unionization means. The company can act directly with the workers in non-union locations and must work with the union in union locations; that seems to be what Starbucks is doing. (Now, are they being strategic and jerks about it? Yeah, probably, but they couldn&amp;#x27;t unilaterally impose these changes, even if seemingly beneficial to workers, without negotiations with the union.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>HardlyCurious</author><text>That union lawyer isn&amp;#x27;t going to unilaterally say ok.  It has to get socialized and a consensus opinion needs to be found.  That takes time.  And like you pointed out, the union might not want to accept a modest increase because it can weaken their bargaining position.  So, despite your claim the union doesn&amp;#x27;t make this more difficult, it absolutely objectively does make it more difficult than he company being able to make a decision without these restrictions.  That doesn&amp;#x27;t mean unions are bad or that this process isn&amp;#x27;t worth it, but don&amp;#x27;t poison the well with unneeded dishonesty.</text></comment>
<story><title>Starbucks illegally withheld raises and tips from union workers, NLRB says</title><url>https://perfectunion.us/starbucks-nlrb-credit-card-tip-complaint/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hiddencost</author><text>First, for the record, any claims that unions make this process harder is a lie designed by a union busting consulting firm.&lt;p&gt;Second:&lt;p&gt;(1) any change to the contract has to be approved by the union. That includes raises and the like, yes.
(2) that can literally be an email from Starbucks to the union&amp;#x27;s lawyer saying &amp;quot;we&amp;#x27;re making these changes&amp;quot; and an email back from the union lawyer saying &amp;quot;cool, sounds good&amp;quot;.
(3) union lawyers work for the union members. They almost never have a reason to reject a purely positive change, and turn-around for simple positive changes can be 24 hours easily
(4) if the union wants more, they&amp;#x27;ll still accept the positive change and then separately negotiate an even larger change.&lt;p&gt;If there&amp;#x27;s an active strike negotiation going on, the company may not want to give an intermediate positive change because it weakens their bargaining power.&lt;p&gt;If the change is a mix of positive and negative, things may go differently.</text></item><item><author>sokoloff</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m clearly no expert in labor law, but isn&amp;#x27;t the entire point of unionization that the company has to negotiate significant changes in contract and benefits terms with the union? As a lay person, that seems like the first principles of what unionization means. The company can act directly with the workers in non-union locations and must work with the union in union locations; that seems to be what Starbucks is doing. (Now, are they being strategic and jerks about it? Yeah, probably, but they couldn&amp;#x27;t unilaterally impose these changes, even if seemingly beneficial to workers, without negotiations with the union.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>n8cpdx</author><text>The Union sets the employees and the business up as adversaries and guarantees that there will be a contract negotiation. If you know that you will be in a knock-down drag-out fight every time the contact is renegotiated, why would you ever give a single solitary inch that you’re not forced to? The business is always n days away from another strike negotiation because that is the entire reason the union exists (to threaten strikes).&lt;p&gt;I don’t understand why people expect labor to be able to play hardball while also trying to benefit from a cooperative relationship with the adversarial partner.</text></comment>