mhoyeTIL that Starbucks corporate management has turned off the tipping options in unionized shops pay terminals so, one more reason to carry cash.
🔥Cassandra🔥@mhoye Do you know the rationale for that decision?
Ben Rosengart@Cassandra @mhoye Real or putative?
Putative: US labor law requires it.
Real: to punish workers for unionizing and discourage others from following their lead.
It’s illegal, but they are confident that the law will be enforced leniently if at all.
US labor law requires turning off the tipping function on card machines in unionized shops?
How could that then be illegal?
@Cassandra US labor law requires the employer not to make changes to working conditions without bargaining for it if the workplace is unionized. So they construe some benefit as a “change”, then refuse it to unionized workers on the basis that it hasn’t been bargained for. This is a standard union-busting technique in the US.
It is illegal to punish workers for unionizing. So they *claim* they’re doing this to follow the law, but it’s really breaking the law. Does that make sense?
@fivetonsflax Hmm. If the standard practice before unionizing was to allow tips on cards, how can it be argued the “change” would be to allow tips on cards?
@Cassandra If I had an answer to that, I could get a job at Littler Mendelson oppressing workers. :-)
@fivetonsflax Heh. Maybe some bullshit like, "at common law, there was no such thing as tipping on a debit machine."
Derk-Jan 💙💛🇺🇦@fivetonsflax @Cassandra “Does that make sense?” No, only in America. 🤪
bignoseI can't find a recent article about that. The most recent I see is 2022: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/16/business/starbucks-tipping/
Do you have a URL to an article that verifies the 2025 state of this issue, @mhoye?
Starbucks union organizers wanted credit-card tipping. Now they’re being left out
While a debate unfolds online about Starbucks’ new credit and debit card tipping option, some workers are frustrated — and it has nothing to do with the etiquette of tipping. Union organizers who asked for this new feature months ago are being left out.