Results tagged “Business” from Don't Go Into The Light

Forbes has pictures of prototypes and artists' renditions of yet to be built models.

At stake: $100 billion and a chance to make Arnold Schwarzenegger's driveway a little more crowded.

May 23 (Bloomberg) -- Airbus SAS, the world's largest commercial aircraft maker, is valued at ``less than zero'' after this year's 32 percent drop in the shares of parent European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., according to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. analyst Joe Campbell.

``The market is viewing Airbus as a liability, rather than an asset,'' said Campbell, 62, who is based in New York and has ranked among the top five aerospace analysts for six consecutive years in an Institutional Investor magazine poll.

Normally, I tend to root for Boeing, being an American company and Airbus' biggest competitor, but I can't take any pleasure in this. I prefer for Airbus to be a healthy company, as it makes our aerospace industry players in the U.S. better.

I'll admit it - I like Starbucks. Not many of us righties do, mostly due to the reputation they have as a gathering place for liberals. I don't care. I like the coffee. That Starbucks is a lefty cultural phenomenon means little to me when I'm in the mood for an overly-roasted caffeine fix.

They used to have a really rich chocolate drink that TB really liked, but when they removed it from the menu she soured on Starbucks. So now I only go when I travel.

I almost always tip when I go - yes, the coffee is expensive, but that's hardly the fault of the baristas - they don't set the price. So naturally I was drawn to this headline yesterday:

Starbucks ordered to pay back tips

Could it be that the tip jars are emptied into Starbuck's coffers and the poor baristas are denied? No, it's even worse - the shift supervisor who slings venti drips and dry pastries right next to the lesser-paid baristas has been benefiting from the tip jar as well:

SAN DIEGO - A Superior Court judge on Thursday ordered Starbucks Corp. to pay its California baristas more than $100 million in back tips and interest that the coffee chain paid to shift supervisors.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Patricia Cowett also issued an injunction that prevents Starbucks' shift supervisors from sharing in future tips, saying state law prohibits managers and supervisors from sharing in employee gratuities.

I might have a little sympathy if the supervisors sat in the back office browsing the web while the baristas slaved over a hot espresso machine, and maybe in some places they do. But the stores I usually frequent have a small staff. From the outside looking in, supervisors appear to be baristas with additional duties. If someone out there who works as Starbucks has a different perspective, please feel free to chime in. I'm by no means unpersuadable.

But we all tend to draw on personal experience when possible, so here's where I come from. While I was still active duty in the USAF, I had a string of second jobs. One was pizza delivery - a job where the employee expects that much of their income will be derived from tips. On nights when we were shorthanded on drivers (or just plain swamped), the shift supervisor (and sometimes the manager) would fire up their Corollas and deliver as well. I don't recall any of the regular drivers whining about lost tips or asking for a share, and I never heard the boss offering to forgo tips.

Now, I know that it might be a little different than having a communal tip jar, but isn't the underlying principle the same? The customer at Starbucks expects the folks serving the coffee to share the tips, if the supervisor is serving alongside the baristas, why should he/she be excluded from the spoils? Isn't it possible that some of the tips were intended to reward service provided by the supervisor?

"...state law prohibits managers and supervisors from sharing in employee gratuities." This one has me curious as well - if, during a rush, a supervisor waits tables in a restaurant, does he have to refuse tips (or give them away to the "employees")? Or does this only apply when there's a tip jar? I can understand the intent to prevent supervisors from skimming tips they didn't earn, but can't there be some circumstances where the supervisor is entitled to tips he/she has directly earned?

I expect that the real harm done to Starbucks won't be the $100 million award. It will be from the supervisors who will now warm a chair in the back room instead of helping out at the counter. Service will suffer, and the baristas may have fewer tips as a result.

Added thoughts: What are baristas paid, anyway? Do they get 8-9 bucks an hour, or a sub-minimum "waitress wage"? Are their hours held back to a small number in order to avoid the baggage of full-time employees? And all the same questions about the supervisors as well. Would the answers change my view? Maybe - although the argument for supervisors to be less involved at the counter still gets stonger as sympathy for the baristas' claim to tips increases.

Welcome InstaPundit readers! And thanks again, Glenn. Are shift supervisors entitled to tips or just greedy? Feel free to join the conversation!

Clarification: The story specifies shift supervisors, not managers. If anyone stops by who knows otherwise, please chime in. But I assume that a shift supervisor is as I've observed - someone who's job description includes barista plus some additional duties, like locking up and putting away the money, etc. And what do you think of this kind of thing outside of California, where there may not be laws as specific? Are communal tips an entitlement for the lowest paid workers regardless of who provides the tippable service? Should a company be able to set rules regarding tips? Join in!