Starbucks faces a growing labor movement, some 150 stores have unionized in the US The ability to bargain collectively Better benefits, such as health insurance and paid time off, is one of the main topics that organizers are promoting. But what are the benefits that current Starbucks workers like and use extensively? Spotify and mental health, Howard Schultz, acting CEO of Starbucks, told Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times. In the past week.
These less traditional benefits are a way for Starbucks to recruit and retain talent in an industry that is largely employ young people. They also come out as so Generation Zyounger workers who dig content streaming and they are voice over mental health.
Starbucks Evolving Benefits
While Starbucks employees have had access to free Spotify Premium membership since 2015, Starbucks began offering a series of free mental health therapy sessions through a partnership with Lyra Health, a mental health benefits company, in March 2020. The benefit came at a time when the pandemic made it harder to ignore the welfare of low-wage workers who have had to deal with a more unpredictable work environment in the midst of a public health crisis.
The growing labor movement and benefits that Starbucks baristas are concerned about illustrate how younger workers view the workplace differently than previous generations and, more specifically, feel that their current working conditions can be improved and should be better suited. to your needs.
Starbucks has long positioned itself as a progressive employer in part by offering industry-leading benefits; the coffee chain has offered health insurance to part-time workers since the late 1980s. And yet the company has countered organizing efforts, saying it is better positioned to improve working conditions, and not through collective bargaining. Bloomberg recently reported that baristas said their managers had told them they could lose their inclusive health care for transgender people benefits if they join a union, suggesting that Starbucks is willing to change to reflect the demands of the modern workplace, but only on its own terms.