Starbucks is brainwashing employees!

Starbucks puts the homeless smelly coffee farmers back in their place:


www.blackgoldmovie.com...

News STARBUCKS ISSUE PRESS STATEMENT ABOUT BLACK GOLD: FILMMAKERS RESPOND January 16th, 2007 by admin The $6 billion coffee giant Starbucks accused the Black Gold filmmakers of “incompletely” representing the work of the company, as the critically-acclaimed film opened in Los Angeles on Friday 12th January (see LA Times Review) Black Gold is the first feature-length documentary to be made about the $80 billion global coffee industry. The company was so concerned by the impact of the film, that they posted a statement on their website urging customers to “feel good about drinking Starbucks coffee.” The company also defended the price it pays to coffee farmers stating that “in fiscal year 2005, we paid 23 percent above the coffee commodity price.” In response to the Starbucks statement, the filmmakers of Black Gold, Nick Francis and Marc Francis said: “We are surprised that Starbucks have gone out to discredit the film again. This is not a film specifically about Starbucks, it’s a film about the winners and losers in the global coffee industry and it shows the daily reality for millions of coffee farmers.” “We spent six months during the production trying to persuade Starbucks to participate in the film to give them the opportunity to explain how they buy their coffee and how they work in Ethiopia, but they declined our invitation.” “In a subsequent meeting with five senior Starbucks executives at their Seattle headquarters, we asked them to tell us the exact price they pay farmers for a pound of coffee - but they refused to disclose this.”

www.blackgoldmovie.com...

Tadesse is pleased about the growing success of his co-operative. He said, “Thanks to initiatives like Black Gold which continues to raise awareness and demand for good quality Ethiopian coffee we have been able to more than triple the amount of money we pay back to the farmers pockets. Two years ago we were selling our coffee at the Fairtrade minimum price of $1.45/lb. Today our coffee sells for a minimum of $2.30/lb, partly thanks to consumers asking their shops and cafes about how they can buy the coffee they saw in Black Gold”.

Tadesse also says he’s witnessing a slow change in the attitudes of the big coffee companies, “Coffee prices are still too low but the companies are slowly changing. They’ve started investing in social services for the farmers which is a good first step. But our hope is that they will pay us more so farmers can live decent lives from the fruit of their own labour. In Black Gold I said that we needed $10/lb – that’s still our aim”.

[edit on 1-4-2010 by drew hempel]

[edit on 1-4-2010 by drew hempel]

reply to post by Longtimegone


You're young and haven't had too many jobs aren't you? If that's the case, welcome to the service industry. When you become employed with a company, be it local or global, you are part of that company, you are getting paid by them. Even when I worked at Office Depot's warehouse, we all still had to wear office depot shirts, had to comply with the company's standards of appearance and yes, every employee was referred to as a team member, or as "We". No conspiracy in your situation there. As for the homeless person, well, that is the store managers right. When I worked in a sporting goods store many years ago, people would come in and sit on the exercise equipment as if they were park benches, and this is all that they would do. We're they asked not to sit on the equipment? You bet. Were they asked to leave if they weren't even interested in buying anything, but just to find a place to sit down, of course. It's bad for business.

I know it sounds bad, but there are places to sit and there are places for a homeless person to go other than a Starbucks or any other place of business. Most of them are there to panhandle, or to mooch from paying customers. I was once homeless myself, so pity for these people doesn't really exist. I only pity the ones who were down on their luck, the families that lost their homes, and any other genuine person who had no choice but to life in the streets. Most of the others are out there out of choice. Did you know that many of these panhandlers make a pretty good amount of money a year by doing what they do?

Originally posted by Longtimegone
ALSO!!!!!!!!!!

The point of this post is not to argue whether it is right or not to kick out a smelly homeless man.

The point of this post is to discuss why an emplyee would include herself with the company (using the word "we") when it is NOT her career job.

1)There is nothing brainwashed about a business establishment reserving itself for paying customers.

2)She works there. She is part of the company. Hence 'we'.

A job does not have to be a career for you to be part of the company. It is obvious that any establishment wants their employees thinking 'team'' and promoting a team environment.

Throw in the fact that as an individual, walking around all day thinking 'i dont belong here, i am not part of the company, all these people are brainwashed' makes for miserable days at work.
'
Really nothing 'conspiracy' about this. Its good business. The company is not forcing her to say we. They have just succeeded in promoting a team atmosphere.

"It's just like welfare in the United States" -- 13 minutes into the Starbucks response about coffee farmers.

video.google.com...#

I used to work for Starbucks

1. They're a business, homeless people are bad for business. Plain and simple, they scare people off.
2. Starbucks calls their employees "partners" because they all own stock in the company. Wal-Mart calls their employees "associates" as does Walgreens. It's part of a corporate environment.
3. Starbucks DOES brainwash its employees, their coffee is not the greatest in the world and their baristas are a joke. But every major company does the same.
5. screw four
6. Starbucks is a good company to work for. Their business strategy is different than most. Most have the philosophy of Take care of customers > Make money > Take care of workers. Starbucks has the philosophy that if you take care of the workers then the workers will happily take care of the customers who take care of making you money. It makes for a good work environment. Little real stress.

Originally posted by thisguyrighthere
I used to work at a non-franchise coffee shop in a city. It was a constant struggle to keep the vagrants out. We were always busy as hell too and there'd be a whole couch taken up by three passed out drunk mental patients at 7AM.

They'd sleep there all day which wasnt a big deal as long as they didnt stink or we didnt need the seat but then sooner or later theyd get up and start panhandling in the shop or groping the female customers.

The first couple of months I worked there I would sympathize and make excuses but seeing the same crap day in and day out for a years wore me out. Then there was the constant panhandling going to and from work every single day. Vomiting drunk and passed out on the curb still reaching up for a handout.

Of course they'd never take any of the food I offered. They couldnt get high off of food.

Well you could say too bad Pres. Reagan closed all the mental institutions, but they were a nightmare too.

And Starbucks made like $316 million last year and she got how much of that?

You know that the basis of property law was the rationalization for slavery. You own what you put work into, until you lose it to interest and speculation that is... Locke worked for an English legal firm and he was asked to rationalize and came up with 'they are able to work and don't put them selves to work so if one instigates the work one owns the work result'. Now think of every one who works and owns diddly squat of the profit from mining, growing, constructing, shipping, selling or speculating?

Southern slavery lost to the Northern economic model. They found out in the Congo that slavery kills the workers too quickly and if you free them, tax them and keep them at a low educational level it's much more profitable. Gee what kind of cluster bleep just happened is happening to the US educational system?



[edit on 1-4-2010 by DChenO]

O.K. so Ethiopia has coffee as their main source of income -- it's the home of coffee -- 40% of the population is below the poverty line. (Professor Peter Bell) Ethiopia is dependent on food aid.

It looked like they were about half a billion dollars -- starbucks profit in one year! ... the CEO of Starbucks made $16 million in one year.

From the response to Starbucks by Professor Peter Bell of economics -- 33 minutes into the debate.

video.google.com...#

I don't see any brainwashing going on there. Its business ethic. Yes, its sad they threw him out in a rainstorm but if he was disturbing people then he would have to be thrown out. My local starbucks' are rather small so i can see how it'd be an issue.

reply to post by ItsAgentScully


Too bad the farmers -- smelly and in ragged clothes and barefoot -- were thrown out of Starbucks. Oops no more coffee for the plunderers.

Oh wait -- Plunderers want their coffee so better invite the smelly shoeless ragged clothed destitute farmers back into Starbucks.

But wait -- now the customers are pissed they have to smell and see the farmers -- destitute and forced off their land since they sell at below production cost.

Oh now I get it -- "It's just like welfare in the U.S." says the Starbucks "corporate responsibility" representative.

Ah now it makes sense. The homeless coffee farmer just needs better welfare I guess.

Well Ethiopia got $50 million a year in food aid from the U.S. and still 40% of the population is below the poverty line with mass malnutrition.

Welfare ain't doing it -- how about just paying the stinky destitute people a fair wage so that they don't have to begging for hand outs.

Naw better that the CEO of Starbucks makes $16 million a year.

Emergency Feeding Centers have been installed in Ethiopia but at 50 minutes into the debate with Starbucks --

video.google.com...#

The Starbucks "corporate responsibility" center says she can not answer why her CEO makes $16 million a year while the coffee farmers they buy from are starving to death.

[edit on 1-4-2010 by drew hempel]

I was unfortunate enough to become homeless once - many years ago. Trust me, it's a thoroughly dehumanising experience. And there are rarely adequate facilities in any city to deal with the variety of # that gets thrown at you if you're on the street.

Even where facilities exist, those that have been on the street the longest (and are thus generally more violent, drunken and unbalanced by the need to be such in order to survive) tend to take over; it's rarely a nice place to be. So yeah, lots of homeless try to get away with going into coffee shops etc. I always tried to keep out of the way, because you rarely get treated with any respect anyway.

But, having lived on both sides of the coin, I would say that there is no encouragement to improve one's situation if things are too easy. And if I ran a business, I wouldn't have them in there taking up customer space either. I might offer them a shed in the back yard and a job sweeping the floors though. Trust me, that's all a genuinely needy and honest homeless person wants in order to better himself.

I personally am all for Starbucks brainwashing it's employees. When I go into my local Starbucks and look at the young lady behind the counter - I can tell she has a very dirty mind. It needs a good cleaning.

What a ridiculous thread. Seems like the OP is out of touch with reality and more than a little paranoid.

Firstly, lots of people use the term "we" when talking about their job. I do it all the time - even in jobs I've hated.

Secondly, I know people who work at Starbucks and they love it. As a service/retail type job, Starbucks is one of the best employers, and the people I know are very happy working for them. All the more reason to use the word "we". And trust me, they're not brainwashed......no more so than working for any large company, anyway.

As for the homeless dude - get off your "high horse". What company in their right mind would let some smelly hobo impact their business? They're a coffee shop, not a homeless shelter!

Sheesh.

[edit on 1-4-2010 by Curio]

reply to post by Curio


digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu...

Following this refusal, the labor rights coalition initiated a public communication campaign, including informational picketing at Starbucks stores, to pressure the company into adopting the proposed code.87 The U.S.-Guatemala Labor Education Project proceeded to draft a code of conduct that it offered for Starbucks' adoption as part of its campaign.88 By the end of 1994 the campaign was in high gear, with informational leafleting at Starbucks stores in major cities around the country.89 At this point the campaign took care not to call for a boycott, instead urging consumers to write to the company asking them to adopt a code of conduct for workers' rights on supplier plantations in Guatemala.90

Starbucks has "bizarre health and safety rules" wasting "23.4 million litres a day" of water and "to claim you are doing it for health and safety rules is bonkers."

www.thesun.co.uk...

By VERONICA LORRAINE and BRIAN FLYNN Published: 06 Oct 2008 STARBUCKS was blasted by environmental experts last night after The Sun discovered it pours millions of litres of precious water down the drain at its coffee shops. The giant coffee chain has a policy of keeping a tap running non-stop at all its 10,000 outlets worldwide, wasting 23.4 MILLION litres a day. That would provide enough daily water for the entire two million-strong population of drought-hit Namibia in Africa or fill an Olympic pool every 83 minutes. Every Starbucks branch has a cold tap behind the counter providing water for a sink called a "dipper well", used for washing spoons and utensils.

Staff are banned from turning the water off under bizarre health and safety rules - bosses claim a constant flow stops germs breeding in the taps.

Peter Robinson, of environmental charity Waste Watch, said: "Leaving taps running all day is a shocking waste of precious water. And to claim you are doing it for health and safety reasons is bonkers.

Starbucks wastes 6 million gallons of water a day while selling bottled water under Pepsi distribution with a portion of the profits going to water conservation groups. haha.

What a total stink job this is!!

eatdrinkbetter.com...

Greenwashing can not wipe the stink of the star bucks scam.

www.smh.com.au...

WHILE years of drought mean many Australians wouldn't consider leaving the tap running while they brush their teeth, the coffee shop chain Starbucks leaves a tap running all day in each of its 23 Australian stores.

A Starbucks barista from Brisbane, who asked not to be named, said staff members had complained to management about the tap being left running during high-level water restrictions. "We were told it was in the interest of health of safety," she said. "But I've worked in a lot of other cafes over the years and none of them left a tap running."

BRAINWASHED BARISTAS!!

[edit on 1-4-2010 by drew hempel]

I would of give him take out not phoned the law.
op this thread would of been way better if you would of asked posters to add there country of origin .id bet hands down there would of been less to throw him out in the uk .if it was only smell .and did he buy a drink and was like sat in the shop after waiting for rain to stop. i am from uk

reply to post by dashar


Yeah Starbucks needs to give out www.peepoople.com... for the homeless crisis -- that way we can make free compost for the cities so that coffee farmers can sell to starbucks direct from the homeless woods on the edge of town. Just giving out coffee grounds for compost isn't enough.

The day I realized that the corporate "we" had completely infiltrated our society: I have taken calls at work where the caller will ask if the person that handles one function or another is available, I will generally try to determine if anyone at the company wants the call and if so, who is appropriate so, I'm quite inquisitive. Quite often, these callers will wind up asking "is your owner available?" As a society we tend to view the employees of the companies we deal with as replaceable cogs on the corporate gears.

These homeless "drunks" are another problem that permeates our society. So many of these are people who in the 50's and 60's would have been institutionalzed at facilities like Pennhurst (a great recent post). Unfortunately, when these institutions were dissolved a good many of these people were thrown to the streets and there has been no satisfactory re-weaving of the net that should be there to catch them. A lot of these people have never been and will never be capable of being self-sufficient. Is is really appropriate that The Salvation Army, a non-profit organization should be responsible for so many?

To IceOwl, regarding sheep/sheeple. There may be safety in numbers but sheep are stupid. If you put a bell on the lead sheep, you can lead that one to slaughter and the rest will follow unquestioningly. I rather think that's the comparison that's being made. Incidentally, sheep will huddle to stay warm in the winter and the unsuspecting that wind up in the middle of the herd will actually be suffocated. Me, still don't want to be a sheep. I'll continue to think for myself and prepare for my own well being.

OK... Lets get one things straight...

These "drunks" and "loitering bum's" are often Ex-Service men and Woman... Sometimes suffering from PTSD... There are others who are people with mental health issues and/or started as young people from abusive family’s...

Do you really think that homeless people just made a choice about this... like they woke up one morning and thought "you know what... i think i'm gonna become a homeless person"

This is not a sane calculated CHOICE for them!!

All you people who are saying "what i don’t like about the OP is that its stating that anyone who disagrees with the OP statement is somehow brainwashed" Well yeah... get over it!!!!

The OP is basically talking about a company putting profits before ethics... Most of us know that this goes on, not very shocking, but what is shocking is how many people AGREE with this philosophy!!!

And then you wonder why the OP calls them brainwashed!!! are you that blind!!

The OP was not suggesting turning Starbucks into a "soup kitchen" The OP was merely suggesting that they cut the guy some slack and let him have some shelter until the storm clouds pass!!!!

After all... 20 years ago he could have been fighting for your country in Desert Storm... Or escaping a home where he suffered years of abuse... whatever the reason he is a human being who has a story behind him.

To look at him with no compassion (or at least the willingness to act on the compassion) shows just how deep the philosophy’s of social Darwinism is embedded in the American psyche!!

And as for these attacks on the OP such as "i bet you’re young" and "get a job"... Pathetic... I have been a IT manager for the last 15 years... before that i was an engineer... yet i think the same as the OP!!! Mainly because I’ve got the experience and I’ve seen firsthand what the corporate world does to people!!!

You people are beyond gullible... beyond ignorant... it is selfishness on a level that, quite frankly, disgusts me!!

reply to post by seeker11


Yeah, this is a hard one I must say. I couldn't really judge 100% unless I was actually there, as a matter of fact. But, in general, it seems that vagrants are annoying. Having said that, of course, I don't really think it was a big problem to just let him stay until the rain stopped.

Basically, this little story shows us how selfish we have become in this world. Profit and career driven...not caring about other people.