Starbucks continues to be terrible

Just some fun basic math for everyone...

$96 million / 1000 (workers) = $96,000

Want a worse number? Back in 2019, the price of commodity was at less than a $1. Starbucks, at the time made up 3% of the world’s production. They decided to give $20m to their farmers. Did it help? Well based on available financial data at the time, $20m was approximately single afternoon’s profit for the company. A SINGLE FUCKING AFTERNOON! https://sprudge.com/starbucks-would-prefer-you-dont-think-too-hard-about-that-20m-relief-fund-151839.html
Yes, but that's irrelevant, just an accidental "post-" fact.

I think more relevant basic math is that he got a 2.6% bonus in terms of annual net income of the group.

The other 97.4% of labour just goes to shareholders ("landlords" of the financial system).
🍽️🤑

Just so people are aware, Starbucks was caught buying from farms in Brazil multiple times that used slave labor. In Guatemala, along with Nestle, were caught buying from farm(s?) that used child labor.

EDIT: On top of this the company partnered with Conservation International to certify the farms met the company’s standards. The incident in Brazil saw CI trying to coverup the certification of that farm. Also CI is involved with arms dealing.

EDIT 2: Their retail products have the claim “100% Ethically Sourced”. That is a lie.

EDIT: I got the slogan wrong. It is “Committed to 100% Ethical Coffee Sourcing”.

Is this the same nestle slave labor case that went to the Supreme Court where nestle was successfully defended by former Obama solicitor Neal Katyal, or have they done this more than once?
Their retail products have the claim “100% Ethically Sourced”. That is a lie.

That all depends on which ethical code you're referencing for your statement. I 100% believe that Starbucks sources according to their corporate ethical standards.
- That's not how words work. Don't give them an inch, even as a joke.
- I am unable to find a news report now, but I am certain I read one back in 2018 or 2019. I believe that Conservation International (an organization that helped develop the C.A.F.E. standard the company uses) was discovered covering up the certification of one of the farms in Brazil. As I remember reading, that a farm was at the time listed somewhere as being certified but after slave labor was discovered, CI uncertified the farm and attempted to claim it failed to meet the C.A.F.E. standards, thus never was awarded certification. They weren't saying the certification was revoked; it never had any.
Do you have a source for that? I want to read more about it.
- Here are three different reports regarding three different instances in Brazil. https://news.mongabay.com/2019/05/slave-labor-found-at-second-starbucks-certified-brazilian-coffee-farm/
  
  https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/slave-labor-found-at-starbucks-certified-brazil-coffee-plantation/
  
  https://reporterbrasil.org.br/2023/11/starbucks-slave-and-child-labour-found-at-certified-coffee-farms-in-minas-gerais/
  
  Here is one on the Guatemala incident. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/01/children-work-for-pittance-to-pick-coffee-beans-used-by-starbucks-and-nespresso
yeah well anyways you see rich people do worse shit in front of you but yet we cannot change anything.

Remember when Ford had an amazing performance growth, made record profits, then laid off a huge amount of people and moved more business overseas. Nothing like capitalism to fire you when you're down and fire you when you're up!

Or sharing profits among the leeches when it's going great, but when shit goes down they are begging for help from government and firing people. How about you not instantly take out profits but you build resillience through reserves and preparation? Lol, who am I kidding, milk the cow till it's dry and then make beef patties when it stops giving milk.

So he literally stole their salaries. We can't put up with millionair ceos anymore, it needs to be outlawed..

This is the guy that commutes from LA to Seattle on a private jet?

Yeah, same guy who fired nearly everyone at the Chipotle corporate office in Denver so he didn't have to commute.
- I'm just amazed no one goes Luigi when shit like that happens...
- That's.....man I hope you're wrong as that's awful.
OC to Seattle, but yes. The guy didn't want to relocate from Newport Beach, so they bought him a jet to make his weekly "commute."
- Wasn't it daily commute?

Just for perspective here,

1000 * $15/hr = $15,000 / hr

$96,000,000 / $15,000  / hour = 6,400 hours

6,400 hours / 40 hours / week = 160 weeks

160 weeks / 52.17857 weeks / year = 3.0663929655412174 years

They could afford to keep those employees on for another 3 Years with that amount.

Was it baristas that were laid off or office workers? Minimum wage for their corporate headquarters is a bit over $20/hour, and I'd suspect very few corporate employees are making only minimum wage.
- That might be fair, but "laid off" has the sort of vibe to it that they didn't get to choose between minimum wage and no job. Also, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 and the minimum wage in Washington state, where starbucks HQ is located is $16.66 so yeah definitely would have to rework the math based on location of the layoffs.

I don't get it. We did not let kings and lords and counts keep their belongings. Why are we treating this scum any different?

In the time of kings and lords, it got way, way worse than this.

Not saying we should wait that long now, just saying.
Capitalism has no face to punch
- It has many!

They could have paid every one of those employees nearly 6 figures instead. If the company is doing so badly that they feel they need to lay off a thousand people, they should not be handing out CEO bonuses, period.

Pretty sure a good portion of that was union busting, but that's what we're all about now.
- This would not shock me in the slightest

Don't use Starbucks anymore. It's American

Don't use Charbucks anymore. It's shit coffee

This is the same douche canoe that was the CEO of Chipotle and denied that the serving sizes were getting smaller and told people to just harass the worker making the food if they thought their serving size was to small.

Also the same guy trying to green wash plastic waste to be customer responsibility while commuting on a private jet from Southern California to Seattle.
Wait we had permission to do that? I thought I was just being a dick and telling them to "keep going". What a relief, too bad I won't go back.

That's $96,000 per layed off worker

96 million could pay the salaries of basically 2000 baristas

Probably how they determined the amount of the bonus. His idea, he got a cut.

There's absolutely no way he's adding enough value compared to Joe MBA to justify that compensation.

That's what I'm trying to do understand as well. What's the explanation for these kinds of things? What's the actual sequence of events and how conditions that lead to these things? Why would the board approve of this kind of compensation?
- "It's a big club, and you ain't in it."

Shop local. It's just coffee. Don't let the marketers tell you any different. For sweet creamy syrupy treats go to the ice cream store. Let's not support the current system of the bigwig at the top who does very little and reaps most of the rewards.

Plus ordering there takes 3x longer than if I just made a coffee at home. They are not convenient unless you are traveling and have no access to a coffee maker.
Hell even my regular coffee shop does most of the ~~milkshakes~~ fancy coffees that Starbucks does.

I drink black coffee but they do look really good
But the local shops are often treating employees in ways that starbucks couldn't possibly get away with. Source: ex who worked 14 hr shifts without weekends at 4 different places for a couple months each and came out at net negative.

There are some nice places though, where barista is the owner, and not just some stupid rich kid trying his hand at entrepreneurship.

Friendly reminder, comrades: There is no such thing as a good billionaire. From the East to the West, they are humanity's enemy.

"Good billionaire" is an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. You can be good, or a billionaire but not both. If you were good, you wouldn't have a billion dollars.

So who will be the next Luigi?

I'm hedging my bets on a Mario. Let's a go! 🎲🎲
What's the second worst industry in America after health care?

There ain't no smile in those eyes. Creepy AF.

You have to be willing to exploit your fellow humans to get where he is. Either you don’t have a soul to start with or it gets torn to bits every step you take up the ladder.

I’ve known people like that. I’ve been very close to people like that. It’s crazy, everywhere they look they’re looking for some win/something they can take. They never feel guilty. Honestly, the only thing they feel is betrayal when someone won’t bend the knee.

That’s my little observation.

Sad thing is, they still have people who love them but they aren’t truly capable of reciprocating. Everything is transactional and they always expect it to be profitable for them. The only thing that truly hurts them is when it isn’t profitable. It sucks being caught in their orbit too. Believe me.
- My brother was a sociopath, unsuccessful in business but a user and abuser.
Mr. Beast smile

Boycott what you don't like. Vote with your money.

Haven't spent money in a Starbucks for over a decade...nor fast food chains, nor Walmart.

Did do a few Amazon purchases a few years ago and I still feel guilty about it.

I've literally only bought two things from amazon, ever. I feel bad about it to this day :/
Thank you for defeating starbucks for us. It's wonderful to know that this news story didn't happen thanks to your valiant efforts!

I worked there back in the early aughts. It actually was a cool retail job that paid reasonably well, a few dollars above minimum, and you got company stock, benefits, a free pound of coffee a week or box of tea, you were invited to company meetings, free drinks on shift, and we did all sorts of cool volunteer stuff, like with the food bank and habitat for humanity, and we would do coffee tastings at events, all sorts of things. It honestly was a fun job lots of the time. It's so sad it's turned into trash.

I have never gone to a Starbucks and I never will. It's not that hard to do that. They will never get even a penny out of me.

Fair warning, if you're brewing coffee at home it's still possible to buy Starbucks.

Most of the coffee at Costco is just rebranded Starbucks beans. A lot of dark roast coffee is secretly shitty Starbucks beans. If it smells like cigarettes at any point, you've probably got Starbucks coffee.
- What if I told you, I don't drink coffee.
- Shouldn't Costco warn people if they're gonna sell burnt ass coffee beans though?
The only reason i would go to a Starbucks is to look at the people working and buying coffee there. Or to meet a cute person behind the counter, but i have never nore will i spend money in that
I already have dirty toilet water at home, I don't see why I would pay Starbucks for it.

Starbucks gives the new CEO a $96 million bonus, then a month later, lays off 1,000+ ~~workers~~ Potential Luigis.

FTFY.

We wish

Looks like Luigi got another flag to reach

Luigi did his part
- Maybe we need Mario now?

So weird to pay someone that much.

Cap the maximum compensation gap (including bonuses and stocks) between the highest paid and lowest paid person in a company at 1000:1. Any overpay goes into a UBI account that pays out equally to all.

Should be 30 :1 on whichever is lower average or median salary and contractors count if they perform core business functions/work on location.
How is a CEO supposed to survive on only $15,000/hr? He’ll never get to join the three comma club making LOW 8 figures!

/s
Then they'll just hire Task Rabbits or otherwise divide companies by pay.

Starbucks needs more union stores. Unions can address loopholes more quickly and effectively than government legislators can. Deunionization is half the reason why inequality has skyrocketed since the 1970s.

We need to fix the root causes of inequality by building infrastructure that can't just be destroyed by executive order.

Gets invited to meeting with manager. Employee orders coffee for the meeting Manager says, his coffee will be "To Go"

I work at a bakery (we’ve got snacks, coffee, cake, and danishes in addition to bread), and every once in a while I see two people come in and it’s not clear if they’re on a date until they disagree about whether it’s for here or to go. Then I realize that only one of them thought it was a date. It’s especially awkward if the one who did has already offered to pay for everything.

Doing that for a job instead of a date is brutal
That's fucking cold

They are hired assasins. Like how they had special officers in WWII to commit the massacres

If someone Luigi's him, they better spell his name wrong on the bullets.

that's very witty, well done

Shifting "blame" on these white-collar police dogs (megacorp CEOs) instead of shareholders (and the system demanding growth) only needs to happen when everyone understands that even 96m is 2.6% of 3.760m of net income (2024).

So if 1k people were let go all of them could have gotten 1m of bonus and still the company would have made almost 3bn.

But they were let go bcs yoy income (but not revenue) was lower last year, and the financial markets demand a sacrifice (literally any action, even if not actually needed, just to send a signal they are 'on it').

The usual "efficient" meat grinder stuff.

That fullstop is confusing matters.

And it's just mediocre coffee anyway. Roasted too dark just to keep a consistency in flavour between locations. Starbucks is a tax dodging lifestyle brand, they could start a clothing line and make the same money as they do selling coffee.

I volunteer at food shelters, and every now and then we get something we can't really hand out, like unground coffee beans, so I ended up with a large bag of some Starbucks ultra dark roast of some kind. Had a leopard? on the bag. It smelled like boiled cat shit the instant I opened the bag, went in the compost bin immediately.

I haven't seen someone with so punchable face

I guess it’s a good thing I make my own coffee at home. Bonus! It doesn’t taste like burnt bean water!

Had to get the money from somewhere. Just like Trump. Fire a bunch of workers for the tax cut payments to billionaires. Like clockwork.

Continue to boycott starbucks. There are many alternatives just as good and even better.

And if you really want to take things to the next step, making your own coffee at home from freshly roasted beans is soooo worth it.

Sure, but look at this smile!

Coffee nuts don't drink starbucks and those of us who just drink coffee can't tell the difference...starbucks is a shit company with overpriced drinks.

Starbucks is a company that sells sugar for a lot of money. Who cares what happens to them.

I mean he has been rewarded for making the line go up. Part of making the line go up is reducing overheads. So he is being directly rewarded for actions like firing 1000+ employees. So is it a surprise?

Since I'm sitting negative I should clarify that I do not think the actions are moral. Only that he is incentivized to do things like this.
- Just because there's a financial incentive doesn't mean you should do something. This is a step or two below murber for proflt.

I don't know why people think large companies aren't allowed to get rid of people when they want to? And especially Starbucks, it's shit-work, not a 20y long career maker.

Do you keep a list of workers or jobs who you feel are beneath you and don't deserve enough money to support themselves with basic essentials like food, water, or shelter?
- Why would I do that.
To the company it is "an adjustment." To those people, it can be a devastating loss of healthcare, of the money they use to pay for food and shelter, and even an identity crisis. Starbucks has all sorts of positions, ranging from seasonal part time employees, to store management that gets paid pretty well, to corporate employees that presumed they were in 20y career trajectories. Every single one of them deserves better than losing their job just to pay for a big bonus for one guy.

It's not about whether they are allowed or not. It's that actions should have consequences but the modern corporate structure has so divorced leadership from the consequence of their actions that this is normal. Let me rephrase: Hurting people to pump your personal wealth is not just normal, it's expected. That's sick.
- Lol, okay, blame starbucks all you want, it's a faceless entity. You could be mad at the politicians who set you up to instantly fall into desperation the moment you lose a minimum wage job, but if you want to be mad and ineffectual at the same time, be my guest.
It's not like individual locations determined they're overstaffed or something. The CEO is just blanket firing people because it makes some numbers look more gooder on some spreadsheet.
- Oh so that's their reason is it, make number look good, company be strong.
  
  It wouldnt be because of your idiot president causing a recession where more people wont be able to afford to buy coffee as often? You dont think that could be a contributing factor?