TheAgitator.com
The $100 Million Tip
Friday, March 21st, 2008A Superior Court judge on Thursday ordered Starbucks to pay its California baristas more than $100 million in back tips that the coffee chain paid to shift supervisors.Saying baristas were entitled to $86 million in back tips plus interest, San Diego Superior Court Judge Patricia Cowett also issued an injunction preventing Starbucks’ shift supervisors from sharing in future tips.
Cowett said the practice was a violation of a state law prohibiting managers and supervisors from sharing in employee tips.
Will they be obligated to track down everyone who’s ever worked at a Starbucks to give them their reimbursement? And will crappy baristas get the same amount in back tips as the good ones?
The problem I see with this ruling (and the law itself) is that at places like this is that shift supervisers are people who work the counter that are hardly older, or sometimes younger, than the people they supervise. They are working alongside the “baristas” and deserve the tips as much as anyone. Maybe not in all instances, but most of the time.
Who the hell do these employers think they are that they can just pay their employees however the hell they want? They act as if they own the place. They should wake up. This is the NEW America, Baby! We’ve moved past the outdated concept of ownership!
Not really sure what the b!tching is about. The supervisors were skimming the till from the baristas. when I waited tables I did not have to share my tips with management, why should the baristas?
As for whether or not they’ll share the tips equally-
All tips at Starbucks are communal and split up at the end of each week. And California is the only state where this was a problem, as it had a specific law preventing supervisors from sharing in tips. That’s not the case as far as I know in other states.
I know the manager and assistant manager of my local Starbucks. They work just as hard if not harder than the rest of the baristas. As a customer, I’ve got no problem with them getting a share of what I’m giving them.
I have no problem with Starbuck’s establishing any policy they want in their own stores. I have a great deal of faith in the average employee’s capacity to quit of they don’t like it. Apparently, the state of California doesn’t have as high an opinion of it citizens.
The fact is, it is against the law, and they knew it. It doesn’t matter if anyone thinks it’s a stupid law.
annemg - Yes, because it’s NOT ALLOWED to criticize a stupid law.
I said that where? That’s what I thought.
“It doesn’t matter if anyone thinks it’s a stupid law.”
My point, annemg, was that it does matter if I think it’s a stupid law.
So yeah, you said just what I said you said.
No Matt — you’re just plain wrong. Once a law is a law that’s it. Doesn’t matter if it’s stupid. End of discussion.
And besides… shift supervisors were obviously born with a silver spoon in their mouths.
>>>>Once a law is a law that’s it. Doesn’t matter if it’s stupid. End of discussion.<<<<
Such a goofy thing to think or say. Most (if not all) states, counties and cities have 100s of laws that for one reason or another are intentionally ignored or not enforced. Here’s a contest for ignored or unenforceable laws. http://www.nmlawcontest.com/ Police, prosecutors and judges often treat laws as merely suggestions. After all who’s going to stop them? I could list more examples but just Google “ignored laws.”
!00 mill settlement, the LAWYERS will get the top 50-60 mill, they could care less about any of the trumped up clients!
Watch overlawyered, I’ll bet something shoes up soon.
Frankly, I didn’t even know that Starbucks had shift supervisors. It always seemed to me that everyone there was doing the same work, not at all like McDonalds or other places where you obviously see someone who is in charge and doesn’t do much except tell others what to do.
Plus, who tips at Starbucks? I don’t remember seeing a tip jar and the baristas aren’t making two bucks an hour like your typical tip earning waitress.
Matt Moore - you’d be amazed at the number of yuppie-types that will drop a dollar in the tip jar on top of the 5+ dollars they just paid for their ‘quad shot soy caramel macchiato’. I worked at Starbucks for about a year part-time, and with the way that collected tips were split up (based on the number of hours you’d worked that week) 15 hours a week would net me an extra 30 dollars or more in tips. Beer money! Yay!
But it wasn’t expected, and I don’t recall anyone ever getting any dirty looks if they didn’t tip. The only time the baristas would get upset was if someone would casually reach into the tip jar and grab a few bills to pay for their drink because - “Hey, I don’t wanna break a 100!” I think it’s a psychological thing - if you put out a jar for tips, regardless or whether you’re in a job that traditionally gets tipped or not - some people will toss money in it. On the other hand, from the regular customers who came in each day for (and this is an order I am not making up) a “half-caf, grande, 2% but with whole foam, 1 pump vanilla, 2 pumps hazelnut, extra hot cappucino”, the spare change they tossed in the jar for the trouble of having to mix up a special pitcher of milk for their ‘2%’ (Starbucks doesn’t carry 2%) plus steam a separate pitcher of whole milk for their ‘whole foam’ was appreciated.
On the subject of shift supes - they were regular baristas that worked the bar and the register right along with the rest of us. They just also had to count the tills and handle opening and closing duties. I don’t think it ever occurred to anyone I worked with to object to them getting a share of the tips as well - they were serving drinks and mopping floors, too.
It doesn’t matter LEGALLY if it’s a stupid law. It’s fine to say it’s a stupid law. It’s useless to say “poor Starbucks”.
That’s a new one. Take from the poor to give to the poor!? From the first hand knowledge expressed here, in the blog, the “managers” were just glorified baristas. I think that situation would demand that they get the same treatment. (get part of the tips) Just another legal debacle that is bad for the little guy!
Radley’s rather bizarre position seems to be that starbucks should be allowed to escape this judgement because of the inconvience of tracking down ex employees and distinguishing between good and bad servers. Poor Starbuck’s! Its not like they have a payroll system that can identify every employee ever with a few keystrokes. Of course had they simply followed the law they could have avoided this altogether, but that is too much to expect from a poor little mom and pop like starbucks.
Starbuck’s = Evil Corporation
Employees = Innocent Victims
The Law = The Law
Now STFU and just be glad that California is vigilantly on guard against the forces of exploitation and quit questioning minor trivia like whether it’s right or wrong.
Starbuck’s is a big corporation. They should know all the laws and they should know precisely how those laws are going to be interpreted by the government and the courts. There is no room for error here. It’s black and white. Starbuck’s should have caved in and begged for forgiveness and mercy at the first hint of government disapproval. Their mistake is thinking that the government could be wrong and for that those bastards deserve everything they get. How dare they!
THe CA law is designed to prevent the reprehensible practice of management forcibly helping themselves to a percentage of the wait staff’s tips. In this case one might argue that the management deserves the tips too, but it doesn’t matter - the law is the law. And in this case there is a good reason for it- the application in this particular case may or may not be unfair. It doesn’t matter however.
THe judge in this case is only returning the ACTUAL amount owed. THis is the amount that starbuck’s, according to california law, actually stole from the barristas. Where is the disincentive to cheat the law? This verdict sends the message go ahead and steal from the employees, because in the unlikely event you get caught you will only have to return the money that wasn’t yours in the first place, you will still break even - this is a good bet. Triple damages should have been awarded. If a barrista had stolen $20 from the till do you think starbucks would have said “its OK if you just put $20 back, we’ll call it even?”
So… They actually held those poor waiters down and rifled through their pockets pilfering those hard earned dollars after promising them that the tips were absolutely only for the waiters, huh? And they did this week after week as they kept that wait staff chained up, preventing them from quiting and going someplace where they wouldn’t be exploited so horrendously. Surely no waiter with a friggin’ brain would repeatedly go back for that kind of “reprehensible” abuse voluntarily. Of course, there’s always the possibility they were too stupid to realize they were being abused and didn’t know the government was there to save them from their own ignorance.
Sounds to me like the only reprehensible practice going on here is a state government trampling a restaurant’s right to establish its own employee compensation policies in a free market.
annemg - Don’t expect any sympathy from us if you ever get convicted of breaking an unjust law.
Shift Supervisors in Starbucks aren’t really “management” - they have nominally more responsibilities and receive a nominally higher per hour wage. Actual, salaried management staff for each store was prohibited from taking from the tips.
I worked for various Starbucks stores for a number of years. No one ever had any problems with Shifts being granted a part of the tip pie (which wasn’t ever very much anyways). In fact, I never even heard it brought up or discussed.
This is a ridiculous non-issue that has been leapt upon by opportunistic lawyers. It has nothing to do with an “unscrupulous corporation exploiting it’s workers”.
Yes actually they did forcibly take the tips. THe customers give the tips under the presumption that they are going to the barista’s, the company forces the baristas to turn over a portion of the tips to the supervisor or lose their jobs. The company uses this technique to lower its out of pocket expenses for the supervisor - they can pay less than the going rate knowing the difference will be made up by the tips which are taken under pain of job loss from the other employees.
Maybe that was your assumption, but when tips are put in a jar, any assumption about how they’re going to be divided up is merely a guess.
So what? Any employee there can walk out of they don’t like it. It’s not as if Starbuck’s is the only game in town. Employers are only obligated to pay what it takes to get the quality of help they need. Unless they’re having a chronic shortage of people willing to take the jobs, their pay rate must be sufficient. If you’re in business and you’re not trying to control payroll costs, then you’re an idiot. The bottom line is that it should be up to the business owner, not the state to dictate compensation practices. When you turn that authority over to the state, it’s no longer a free market.
I can’t speak for anyone else here, but I’m a big believer in the free market and what’s going on at Starbuck’s in not unethical if the employees are aware of the practice and accept it as a condition of working there. The alternative is to quit, not get the state to come in and impose rules (by force) more pleasing to those who have nothing invested in the enterprise.
The only people robbed here was Starbuck’s and the fact that it was the state legislature holding the gun doesn’t make it any less of a robbery.
Let me ask a few questions. Is it ok for a restraunt to deduct 30% of the bill, for each table she waits on from a waitress’ pay? It happens. How about a company keeping the tip amount that you add to a bill when you pay by credit card? It happens. How’s come I can pay a waiter or waitress $2.85 per hour while everybody else gets at least minimum wage? This was all started to enable the Federal Government to be able to collect income taxes on tips. It has turned into a way for bars and restraunts to be able to pad their profit margins by getting cheap labor.
I watched a girl work a 50 hour week and be told that she OWED the restraunt money on payday! They took 30% of the bill of each customer that she waited on from her paycheck. It was assumed that she was getting at least this much in tips from each customer. In other words she was working for FREE and strangely enough this was PERFECTLY LEGAL!
I’m not arguing that Starbuck’s policy is good or bad. Just that they should have the right to determine that policy without state intervention. As for whether it should be legal to work for free, the answer is, OF COURSE!. Who are you (or the state) to tell me I can’t?
Regarding the following….
Please be a little more descriptive so we can understand why she might be expected to receive tips that high and whether all the other waitresses also worked there for free.
Ok Dave.
The restraunt I’m referring to is a fairly busy place that sells food and beer. The table turnover is high and for the most part the tips are good. Their policy is that they take 30% of each customer’s bill from the waitress’ pay for income taxes. They assume that she is making more than that 30% in tips. At the end of the week the 30% is added up and subtracted from her hourly wage. 9 times out of 10 this leaves a negative balance which the waitress has to pay. 9 times out of 10 this amount is more than the owner has to pay in Social Security and unemployment taxes. Thus the owner is getting his waitresses for free and sometimes actually making a profit from them on a good week. Enough said?
Well, it seems like you left out the part that explains how it makes sense for anyone to work under those conditions, but I think at this point it might just be better to accept that we’re never going to be in agreement on this.
My point is simply that employers and employees should be at liberty to freely engage in almost any arrangement they wish without state intervention. Clearly you think otherwise. Thanks for the exchange, but now its time to move on.