
California High Court Rules Starbucks Must Pay for Off-The-Clock Work - dsr12
https://www.wsj.com/articles/california-high-court-rules-starbucks-must-pay-for-off-the-clock-work-1532721371
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elgenie
> In the Starbucks case, Mr. Amaya said that the court found the chain “just
> relied on the idea that a few minutes doesn’t mean anything, and the Court
> said that sort of attitude won’t fly in California.”

The decision's not too surprising, then. "No big deal" carries zero persuasive
value: it only works as a supposed argument when the person hearing it already
agrees.

While Starbucks had no problem stealing 4-10 minutes a day from the plaintiff
for regularly scheduled closing tasks _as a matter of policy_ , I somehow
doubt they would've scoffed and hand-waved away him clocking in every day 10
minutes before he actually arrived.

~~~
pasbesoin
The disparity is important to point out. Companies -- many, speaking in
general -- will go through contortions and "chain of command anger
transmission" over _any_ overtime, and efforts to avoid same.

Likewise, efforts to keep employees below the number of clocked hours that
would qualify them for benefits. (Some places, this is or used to be 30 hours
/ week.)

On the other side of the coin, though, many employees have to buffer their
time to make sure they don't clock in a second late. (And, once you're there
ahead of shift, often you will be asked or expected to "help out" with
something, on an "impromptu basis". This also uses personal loyalty to effect
unclocked work; your co-workers may be your friends, and how can you say no to
them when they could use the help? When actually, if the place is short-handed
prior to your shift start, this is a _workforce and scheduling problem_ on the
part of the employer.)

And, for example, employees have to struggle between providing the expected
level of customer support and patience, with lingering or last-minute
customers -- which takes away from overlapping scheduled closing preparations
-- while not (officially, at least) going over the mandated hours limit
completing the delayed closing.

Businesses try to squeeze out every second of possible idle time, while
shoving the responsibility and expense for any variations that cause overages,
onto the employees.

In the "salaried" pay domain, in the U.S., many employees are required to be
present 40 hours / week, even when things are slack. If they perform better
and get their workload done early, they are required to stick around like an
hourly employee (and may get more impromptu work assigned, as a "reward").

But, when demand is higher or a crunch hits, they are expected to stay as much
longer as it takes -- for no additional pay.

The benefits of a salaried position's fixed pay rate, accumulate mostly to the
employer. Any actual schedule flexibility for the employee, devolves to their
manager and HR. Who may try to be "fair" (and, as I've seen, often more senior
management and HR policy hamstring immediate managers in doing this) or who
may play favorites -- or just try to make themselves look better with the
appearance of a "dedicated", "hard-driving" staff -- that they've "obviously
motivated".

In the U.S., we have a lot of overall wealth. We could make a lot of lives
better, spending a bit of it on more appropriate staffing. But we don't.

And, no one will act in a way that makes them "less competitive" (e.g. "higher
costs"), unless there's a common requirement -- a level playing field -- one
that has effective teeth.

THAT'S what 40 hours, and laws and regulations about overages, are meant to
be. Compete -- that's fine. Just, you can't -- none of you -- step over this
line, where we define employee abuse as starting.

And why do we have government enforcement? (And unions, etc.) Because it's
awfully hard for an individual employee to fight a business, with its much
more substantial resources and influence.

(Also, there is already tremendous complaint about lawsuits and torts and...
Does anyone really want more of that? Arguably, many businesses would rather
have common standards defined and enforced. Less legal hassle -- and, if
everyone has to abide by them, still a level playing field on which to
compete.)

AND NOW, add a world economy to the mix, with vastly differing standards.

What does that do to your domestic labor marketplace? (This is a rhetorical
question.)

Back to this case and the U.S. I'm glad circumstances like these are getting
called out and addressed. People need to think more about these matters, not
less.

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RyJones
Good. Wage theft is a crime - literally.

[http://wagetheftisacrime.com](http://wagetheftisacrime.com)

~~~
shub
The short excerpt you can read for free says this is more about stuff like the
two minutes between clocking out at closing time and locking the door on your
way out. It might be wage theft in some sense but isn’t the same thing as
requiring hours of unpaid overtime. On the other hand, I suspect the part of
the article you can’t read for free is about an employer who tried to cover a
substantial amount of work under this exemption and now the court has to ruin
things for everybody to prevent abuses.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
It might be OK if everything goes well.

My own experience closing down stores of different types, though, is that that
time varies. Most of these places won't let you clock in just a tad early: One
place required you be perfectly on time, many others had a 3-minute window
before your scheduled time.

Now, if locking the door and leaving took a minute each time (much like
employees leaving without locking up), it might not be an issue. But lots of
things happen. Sometimes you have to wait for folks to use the toilet: Other
times, there are issues with the alarm and you wind up having to call the
alarm folks. Sometimes it just takes longer to leave: One fast food place I
worked at required folks gather in one vestibule. 2 workers went to their
cars, one stopping outside the door and the other stopping at the exit.

This was a security measure in case of a robbery. You were encouraged to clock
out once your work was done, though, and wait around for the others and
management to get finished as well. You were violating safety standards if you
just left.

This was all unpaid time. Even at 5 minutes each day, it adds up. Sure, it
ism't the same as requiring hours of unpaid overtime, but that's only due to
severity of wage theft. It is like having a lesser punishment for stealing $5
compared to $100.

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lpolovets
In theory, this decision makes sense. If you're having employees track the
time that they work, it's weird to ask them to clock out before doing a little
bit of end-of-day work.

In practice, since Starbucks pays above minimum wage, I suspect they might
just lower hourly wages by 1-2% if the average worker now clocks in for 1-2%
more hours.

~~~
crooked-v
I would suspect that the marketing cost of lowering wages by 1% is far more
than the money saved by lowering wages by 1%.

~~~
lpolovets
Agree, but you can probably "hide" it so that it's subtle. E.g. you give
people slightly smaller raises, or don't increase initial salaries for new
employees over time as quickly as you might have. I'm not making a value
judgment on whether this would be okay, but I think Starbucks could do
something like that without the world noticing.

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intopieces
I manage a group of hourly workers. On occasion, one or two of them would stay
a bit late to finish some work and not count it in their hours because they
didn’t want to clock overtime.

Another worker would sometimes leave early or come in late, but write the
straight 9-6, because “the other place I worked was okay with it.”

I put a stop to both immediately. The first is exploitative, the second is
time theft, and neither are good for the company.

I am grateful that the state of California is strict labor laws. They are a
pain in the ass as a manager, but they give me the tools I need to make sure
the people who work for me aren’t being exploited.

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OrwellianChild
What confuses me is why Starbucks would fight this fight at all... A huge part
of their brand is employee support, with free online college tuition, a strong
culture of internal advancement, etc. These fringe activities are very small
and represent a rounding error on salary & wages for the employees concerned.
This could have been remedied with a quick apology to the plaintiff and a
change in policy. Why would they drag this out on appeal after appeal?

~~~
Hydraulix989
It must not be a rounding error then. Here in Korea, I see the Starbucks
employees sticking around well before opening and closing times doing all
sorts of preparations and cleaning. I always wondered whether it was
considered part of their shift.

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ascorbic
Non-paywall story: [https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/In-suit-
against-...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/In-suit-against-
Starbucks-Ca-court-says-workers-13108697.php)

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/YkN7d](http://archive.is/YkN7d)

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quickthrower2
Your frappuccino is gonna get a bit more expensive.

~~~
vkou
Your frappuccino would also be cheaper if it were made by slave labourers,
chained to their workplace.

How about we pay people for work that they do?

~~~
Fjolsvith
I own a business and any expenses that come up get passed on to the customer.

