This I saw on a sign outdoors a coffee shop in downtown Miami. Eternity Roasters in the old Ocean’s Bank building. I worked there for a minute a while ago. Same block, northeast point was a Starbucks. I patronized Eternity Roasters but it was more likely that I would be found at the Starbucks.
Why? I love the taste of a brewed Starbucks cup of coffee. Love it.
Recently, Starbucks formed a union. One of the demands of the now organized workforce was to implement a tipping option.
So, in Washington DC, a grande (that’s a medium to the handful of non-Starbucks readers) brewed coffee is now $3.80. The options for tipping start at $1. So, for a cup of coffee a machine made, I now bleed almost $5 into the corporate trough.
Which is too much.
Starbucks net profit, that’s after it paid all its bills, including its employees salaries and taxes, for 2022 was $3.3 billion dollars.
I mean it puts one in a difficult situation. I want to help the workers. Starbucks employees are supposed to make a starting rate of $17 hourly. Because in Washington DC, $17 an hour is $34,000 annually. That’s actually the math for anywhere. But in DC, $34,000 is poverty.
So, what do I do? It is a matter of choice and I don’t want a government to legislate price controls on a cup of coffee. And I don’t want to stop drinking Starbucks. I want them to pay their workers more and make the tip option unnecessary.
It was so nice to hear the president at the last State of the Union address things like service charges on hotel bills and the like.
Not that he can really do anything about it, but just to hear someone talk about the crap we all deal with and just accept because what are we going to do?
I want the culture to change. For too long we have had this idea that since corporations and large businesses provide jobs, we should allow them to do anything and not pay taxes.
The truth is that corporations do not provide jobs. We do. Believe me when I tell you that business sees an employee as an expense and only hire when they are forced to. They hire when they have a need. Giving them big tax breaks does not incentivize them to hire more people and we saw that.
I want us to have an elected leadership who openly talks about ways they are going to make living here better.
And I am buying a thermos.