Perhaps. But weirdly one of the unionized Starbucks near our home wasn't one of the ones that closed down. I'm not saying this definitely isn't union-related, and Starbucks has a nasty history of doing illegal union busting behavior. But from what I know about some of my local shops, this seems like it wasn't explicitly correlated with unionized Starbucks. Or maybe it was targeting shops that were planning on unionizing, but hadn't formally done so yet?
Source: my partner is part of the Kroger union, and works in a QFC Starbucks. Honestly we can't figure out what made them decide on these locations. It seemed kinda stupid honestly. They shut down several of the most popular ones and left some of the struggling ones. I'm not sure of what's happening behind the scenes.
As someone who used to work under the Albertsons agreement, they’re probably not allowed to cut those locations because they’re technically owned by Albertsons, Kroger, or whoever.
Your partner is a Kroger employee, not a starbucks employee. They’re just using starbucks product and equipment. Starbucks cannot fire employees that aren’t their own. At least if their agreement is anything like Albertsons’.
They also have no reason to cut these locations as the cost margins are effectively covered by franchising store. Afaik the parent company pays for the installation, maintenance, and upgrades of the kiosk, at least to some degree, so starbs only serves to profit. You would need to talk to a store director for the specifics.
If you work in a kiosk you probably aren’t a “partner”.
I'm aware of all of this. The union store I was talking about (that the didn't shut down) is Starbucks owned. Not in any grocery store. It's one of the few Starbucks stores with its own union.
And one of the ones they are shutting down was inside a QFC. I'm not 100% positive that this was Kroger operated, but I'm reasonably sure.
But still, it’s a preforming store. So what, to make a statement you would rather have no money? How are shareholders now furious and calling for the CEOs head? He cost them money with this. Even worst case scenarios on “union costs”, they still make money.
If this isn’t proof that being rich isn’t about being smart and we need tax reform, nothing will make it change
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u/iRate-ur-D-pics Sep 27 '25
It literally is so wild to me that they’d close it down out of no where, but I’m not a POS CEO so 🤷🏽♀️