An email convo between Nicole, a former Starbucks barista, and myself, excerpted with her permission. It’s a long, but I believe valuable, post. Please join in the discussion.
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From: Nicole
I thought I’d try to explain a bit about some of the problems that you may be having with Starbucks. I worked there for over a year in two different cities. I’m not saying the company’s perfect, but I also think that you may be a bit harsh on them and their employees.
Remember that the employees, especially if they are new, are bombarded with information on a daily basis…. If the barista you talk to isn’t as helpful as you’d like, you can always suggest that they french press it for you. In addition, the coffee names and packages changed recently, so not everyone will immediately know that Cafe Estima is the Fair Trade coffee. It used to just be called Fair Trade Blend. Clearly that was much easier.
I’m not saying your search or desire isn’t important, I guess I’m just suggesting you give the people a break and be willing to be helful yourself.
Finally, it’s not necessarily their fault if they aren’t brewing the Coffee of the Week. That is shipped to them from Seattle in different packaging than the pounds you buy in store. If they don’t receive that coffee, they can’t brew it. It could be the manager’s fault for not ordering it, they could have been shipped the wrong thing or they didn’t receive it at all.
In my experience at several different stores, if you make a connection and talk with someone, a manager or assistant manager, especially if you make the time to do this when there isn’t a line out the door, they’ll be more than happy to help you and make sure you’re happy. Since this is such a big concern for you, you may even ask to talk to the district manager…. I guess what I’m saying is that a little effort on your part to let the managers and/or district managers know that you aren’t happy would probably get you a long way.
Nicole
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From: Siel
Thanks so much for your detailed email! I totally agree that it’s tough — really tough — for the baristas to retain all the many bits of info thrown at them. I’ve written several times about being kinder to baristas, mindful of the fact that there’s a lot they’re expected to remember, that the manager may not have done a good training job, and that fair trade might be a new request for them.
This is really why I wish managers would, you know, take just a few minutes with the baristas to explain the fair trade policy. What it is, what blend carries the seal, and how to proceed if a customer requests it — especially considering that the Cafe Estima’s a relatively new blend (and much more difficult to identify as fair trade certified than the previous Fair Trade Blend). Unfortunately — as you can probably tell — this hasn’t been done.
Again, in almost all cases, I REALLY don’t think this is the barista’s fault. I looked at the Coffee Passport baristas are given — The booklet doesn’t even show a copy of the fair trade seal! If the barista missed just a few, small-print words in the 104-page booklet, there’s no way they’d be able to make the connection!
I hear you with trying to get the ears of store and district managers — which we have tried to do! We even met with LA-based managers last month and let them know our concerns. I’ve also been in touch with several store managers in the specific stores in which I personally was told “we don’t French press,” or something to that effect, to try to remedy the situation (this Hoover & Jefferson store in particular). But aside from one lovely store (Pico & Robertson in LA), these managers have done nothing as of yet :(
Which brings me to your idea of trying to work with the baristas — in essence, challengers engaging in a lil barista training :) As of yet, we’ve tried to leave the instructions at the minimum (1. ask for fair trade coffee, 2. report what happens) to avoid confusion and make it easier on the challengers, many of whom were learning about Starbucks’ fair trade promises for the first time. But perhaps now is a good time to encourage challengers to engage a lil more fully. You know — letting the barista know that Cafe Estima’s the fair trade blend, and specifically requesting a French-press.
I hope you understand that this is certainly a new process for fair trade advocates too (a group that includes yourself, I hope? :) so comments like yours are very much appreciated and enormously helpful in thinking about where best to go from here. As a grassroots movement, the Starbucks Challenge has the benefit of being able to tweak and change quite speedily as the challenge progresses — something that Starbucks the giant corp. is unable to do.
In terms of 3.5 — We honestly though that this would be a piece of cake for Starbucks! We weren’t aware of the challenges stores may have in having Cafe Estima in stock — I mean, Cindy of Starbucks’ CSR dept. sounded pretty damn confident — and the last time Cafe Estima was featured, I dropped by 3 different stores and it was yummily brewing in all of them! We really thought this would be a nice PR boon for Starbucks (you know, a sort of “thank you” to Starbucks managers for taking the time to meet with us). We — especially in LA — were quite shocked to see that getting a cup of fair trade would STILL be such an issue — even when we were specifically sending challengers to the stores while it was ostensibly being featured as the coffee of the week!
Ok — calming down now ;) Looking forward: Challenge 4.0 will launch mid-March, so we have lots of time to go back and forth about this….
Siel
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From: Nicole
I think it’s great what you’re doing and I don’t at all mean to imply that Starbucks is great, correct or without fault. I only did so much reading into your project, so I was reacting to what I had read…
The issue I’m sure you’re coming up against is that regardless of the name, any big company is going to cause you problems because you have a spin machine telling you what they think you want to hear and the people who really need to hear you don’t even know you exist. This is definitely not just a Starbucks problem. But I think it’s great that you’re so committed and have done so many different things to get this off the ground.
As for what else you can do, I guess I just say continue to be proactive and get as many of your blogging friends involved. Like you said, for many of them this is the first time they’ve encountered fair trade and/or Starbucks’ many policies. Maybe if you take the time to do some explaining to your challengers, you can help them to help Starbucks.
Of course, the worst part is that you have to be doing all the work in the first place. Absolutely, Starbucks should be more on the ball and the PR department isn’t the only one that should be helping you. Dealing with corporate is a big issue. The best suggestion I can say is to try and get a barista or manager with you in this. The one thing the company is really good about is listening from the inside. If a partner - or multiple partners - (what Sbux calls all their employees) is involved they will be much more likely to listen to you and help, I think….
It’s kind of hokey, and really simple, but you might think of creating some sort of “study guide” or poster, or some such that managers could put up in the back room for baristas to read…. Sbux is genereally pretty good about continuing education and that’s really where I tended to pick up actual useful knowledge….
Nicole
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From: Siel
Starbucks would make me SO HAPPY if they’d put up a “study sheet.” Unfortunately, they weren’t even so hot on my lil post-it solution.
Ok — first day of teaching for the semester here, so I gotta go, but more later :)
Siel
Surely the point of the challenge was to see if Starbucks would keep to their promise of serving a F/T coffee to anyone who asked. There was nothing on their website about the customer needing to tell the barista how to do their job.
Siel, you have been right to encourage challengers not to be rude or annoying to baristas. Of course, they are real people and should be treated with respect.
Finally, Nicole is right to suggest that a lot can probably be achieved by going to see the managers responsible for individual stores. It seems to me that Sbx stores operate with more autonomy in the states than here in the uk, because many of them are franchises. So they are less likely to follow what is handed down from on high. Perhaps if managers were confronted by a number of their regular customers they would be more likely to comply.
Comment by beev — January 10, 2006 @ 8:08 pm
as the sbux challenge goes on, the more i think that sbux is incapable of 1)quality customer service across the corporation 2)informing its employees of policy and product changes in a timely manner 3)caring enough about Fair Trade to make 1&2 above change. face it, sbux business model is not about quality customer service or making sure they buy coffee beans that aren’t from exploited or disenfranchised farmers/farm workers. the sbux business model has always been about carpet-bombing the American commercial landscape with more stores than anyone could possibly need. it’s about location and the assumption that they all know what we needed and we were all fans of theirs before they invaded out cities. furthermore, if a company can’t even properly pay their employees for overtime, how could they possibly acheive transparency in their coffee purchases? if a company is under investigation for union-busting, how could they really care about the plight of the people that grow their beans? we all know that sbux employees are all just trying to do their job well, but does corporate up in Seattle really give a damn? i mean come on, are people going to go somewhere else to get coffee when in a lot of places, sbux has made it so that there’s NO PLACE ELSE to get coffee? last part of this tirade: a lot of people in the Fair Trade movement think that the reason the “Fair Trade Blend” was renamed “Cafe Estima” is because they no longer have a glaring reminder on their menu board that only 1 of their coffees is Fair Trade Certified…it makes the “well, all of our coffees are technically fair trade” lie all that easier to tell…
Comment by bay area fair trade dude — January 10, 2006 @ 8:34 pm
Agree…good points from commenters. I was really just thinking about coming up with a plan to work together with baristas in this challenge to get to the corporate office in Seattle. Hmmm, what can that be?
Maybe the next challenge would also include challenging baristas on their stand about Fair Trade movement. If they’re already in or buying in to the whole challenge for Sbx, then I think this demand for Sbx to comply will go really far…just a thought :-) To that extend, we’ll be pro-active…once again helping the ones (corporations) who don’t know any better or won’t do any better…we’ll see maybe this could work better.
Comment by Maya — January 10, 2006 @ 10:47 pm
Bay area Fair Trade Dude, I think you have a few legitimate points. Yes, Starbucks is running local cafes out of business in many communities. Yes, the results of Challenge 3.5 seem to show that the company has not done very well in living up to its promises. And you’re right, they don’t care as much about Fair Trade as we do.
They are a for-profit company, not a bunch of Fair Trade advocates like us. Bashing the company will not promote Fair Trade nor will it encourage one of the largest buyers of FT beans on the US market to sell even more of them. I don’t blame you, I like to rant as much as the next guy, but we have to keep in mind that the company is not a monolith. If you have read the posts here then you know that the partners in some areas are a lot more educated about Fair Trade than others. Some even have Cafe Estima brewing at all times.
I think that CityHippie and GreenLAGirl have taken a thoughtful and realistic approach to the problem. If we show them that their customers want more Fair Trade coffee they will provide it. Sure, it is not quite as simple as I have stated and there is a lot still to be done, but this is the beginning of a grassroots movement that is growing very rapidly right now.
There are a lot of ways to effect social change. If a complete boycott of Starbucks makes you feel better and you really believe that is the most helpful approach, then more power to you. However, if you want to put your almighty dollar to work for the greater good then get out there and do something: participate in the Starbucks Challenge 4.0!
Comment by wheeledmenace — January 10, 2006 @ 10:55 pm
I completely understand the thought that you “Shouldn’t” have to help the baristas, but in the end I think what’s more important is making sure that you are heard and that what you are hoping for actually occurs. To that end, I don’t really think it matters what the Sbux website says or what you think should or should not be happening. What I was suggesting was what I consider the more pro-active, easy and in the end, most-likely to be effective way to acheieve your goal.
Most Starbucks employees, in my experience, are well educated, intelligent and helpful people. They choose to work at Starbucks over some other menial, retail job because Starbucks provides benefits and pays much better than your average retail job. I worked there when I was unable to find a job in my field and working there still allowed me to make a living wage and pay my bills. My point is that it’s not that the employees are unwilling, they are just ignorant.
There seem to be many many people involved in the challenge and I feel that if each of you helped to educate just one or two baristas, that would go a long way in making your case and raising awareness. Sure, maybe you “shouldn’t have to” but in the end, what’s more important - taking steps to acheieve your goal or appeasing your pride?
As I told Siel, I haven’t read through all her posts. She cut out some of the more personal info on both of us to post, but I don’t mind telling you all that I have a journalism degree and a debate background. I like to play devil’s advocate and I think it’s important to be able to argue and see an issue from all sides. Mostly I was just trying to show her another view of the situation because I thought it would help her with the big picture.
Comment by Nicole — January 11, 2006 @ 5:44 am
Must be the journalist background Nicole; I have a journalism degree and used to practice law (and sometimes *was* the devil’s advocate (grin).) And I tend to be of the “Catch & Release” school: The goal is to have easy access to FT, as I understood it. One measure is how well SBX is living up to their greenie-claims on this. (And if they don’t, then they should be accused of greenwashing and shunned!) BUT, like you, I see that by giving the partners information needed to please me, they will — and the next couple of folks I send there looking for FT.
As a thread hijack, I might point out that the whole debate about FT commitment and overall Big-Green-Meanie behavior directed at SBX and corporate America has its roots in another problem, basic laws relating to corporations, succinctly and nicely blogged by Ardent Eden recently, but darned if I can find the post to post the url here. Lauren?
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — January 11, 2006 @ 8:45 am
Oy! A lil surprised at some of the anger I sense in the comments here, though I am happy to see this discussion taking place. Wanted to say — I think most of us agree on more things than we disagree –
I think all of us want Starbucks to provide fair trade coffee to customers like they said they would. I think we also might agree that — whether or not customers are OBLIGATED to help Starbucks do this — helping clue in baristas might help further the fair trade cause by getting more fair trade coffee brewed.
I also think we’d agree that, regardless of what the customers do, Starbucks needs to — at the v. least — meet us half way.
In terms of where I am personally — While I do see how some of bay area fair trade dude’s comments might be seen as harsh (to his credit, he himself said it was a “rant”), I’m also with him in terms of the feelings of frustration where the “rant” is coming from. Meaning: What has Starbucks done, seriously? By done, I mean actual changes in the stores.
Yes, they sent out emails and arranged a meeting. Yes, they “communicated.” But what about actual change in the stores? Cuz honestly, in terms of the US, the changes we’ve seen are pretty much limited to the stores that challengers went out of their way to train the Starbucks partners therein.
And while I applaud the challengers for doing that — What about Starbucks actually doin’ some of this important legwork? Does it really come down to challengers “adopting” every single of the thousands of Starbucks in the US to train the baristas for them? Because while I agree this would make it easier for us to get fair trade coffee, it does not, NOT address the need for change within Starbucks to make it live up to its commitments.
I’m not ready to give up on Starbucks yet. They said they fucked up, and that they need lots of time to fix said fuckup. AND they gave us a clear timeline as to when the fuckup should be fixed, at least in the LA area: mid-March for the 1st phase, and 6 months later for the 2nd phase.
Meaning — For me, Challenge 4.0 mid-March will be key. But if we see at that point that Starbucks STILL hasn’t done shit, then I’ll seriously begin doubting Starbucks’ alleged commitment to fair trade, and its alleged interest in fixing their fuckups.
Hopefully, that won’t happen.
Comment by Siel — January 11, 2006 @ 1:12 pm
Corporations are legally, technically, immortal persons of an international class, unneedful of citizenship anywhere, that are encouraged by that station to pull resources and capital from everywhere. Starbucks, like McDonald’s, is about real estate, because they don’t want to hold any of the financial risk of actually serving customers. Maybe I should just post on this myself at some point…unless someone else can succintly finish this thought for me?
Comment by NC — January 11, 2006 @ 1:14 pm
I promise it does belong on this thread.
Comment by NC — January 11, 2006 @ 1:16 pm
ok, a couple of quick responses:
yes, sbux is a for-profit company in the US. BUT, it has been proven time and time again that Fair Trade is a money making venture for ALL involved. it’s the fastest growing sector of the specialty coffee industry, the market continues to grow by large %s every year, and out of all “cause” coffees, FT has the greatest “awareness to purchase” conversion ratio. companies that make a commitment to selling FT coffee reap the financial rewards-note that i say COMMITMENT, like Wild Oats markets converting all their bulk bin coffees to FT and despite the slight invcrease in price, sales were up up up. that’s the difference-real effort vs. half-assed posturing.
and, i also said that the problem is with sbux corporate and management, not with the rank and file employees.
Comment by bay area fair trade dude — January 11, 2006 @ 1:25 pm
I don’t want to sound like a Pollyanna, but it sounds like things are going largely the way they are supposed to: (1) Big Giant For-Profit Corporation sees money-making opportunities in selling FT coffee. (2) FT-Conscious/activist consumers are interested in seeing more FT coffee on the market. (3) Said consumers take it upon themselves to challenge said corporation to meet the FT commitment they made in pursuit of more profits.
SBUX’s ideological commitment to FT is not relevent to the discussion- the commitment can exist solely as an avenue to increased revenue. We FT-Conscious types are more inclined to patronize them if they keep their commitment. Our endorsement of them if they do keep it adds to general goodwill towards sbux AND increases the amount of FT coffee in the marketplace.
System working?
Comment by ButterChurn — January 11, 2006 @ 2:27 pm
Butterchurn is dead on; the point, then, is that for FT to be an option at all, American law generally requires a profit making business case for the choice — not an ethical choice, unless it also generates profit — or be open to shareholder lawsuits . . .
And Siel’s recapitulation is also dead on, IMHO. (See, we do agree!)
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — January 11, 2006 @ 2:56 pm
I see the dilemma considering the way public corps are supposed to be set up these days — But what I’m wondering is — What if said public corp has ALREADY promised its customers about a commitment to fair trade? One of the subtitles for Starbucks’ “Fair trade in our stores” page on their website is “Commitment to Fair Trade.”
As someone who def. does NOT come from an economic / legal background, what’re the ramifications regarding commitments ALREADY MADE by public corporations, regardless of the commitments’ effect on net profits?
As bay area fair trade dude’s mentioned, this profit vs. fair biz practices doesn’t exist for the fair trade model, since fair trade coffee’s already proven to be a sustainable, profitable model. Still, I’m wondering how corporate promises come into play in legal/economic terms…
Comment by Siel — January 11, 2006 @ 4:52 pm
in reference to this: “Butterchurn is dead on; the point, then, is that for FT to be an option at all, American law generally requires a profit making business case for the choice — not an ethical choice, unless it also generates profit — or be open to shareholder lawsuits . . .”
having worked for one of the largest public pension/retirement funds in the world (close to 200 billion in assets) in the area of alternative energy and “green business” investing and portfolio management, I beg to differ. the number of shareholder resolutions regarding environmental and social issues is not only increasing, but also a greater number of shareholders are voting in favor of them. people are waking up to the fact that the mother of all environmental crises is on its way, and they want to know what companies are doing to avoid it, SO, they’re concerned that companies that don’t have sustainability as a major part of their business plan are going to cost them $$$. considering that procuring and selling Fair Trade Certified goods is a profitable venture, megacorporations that DON’T participate would seem to be the ones getting the shareholder resolutions.
the upside is that ethical, social, and environmental issues are now being considered legitimate business concerns for the majority of companies out there.
as far as a company’s commitment to Fair Trade-sbux likes to say they’re committed because the amount of FTC coffee purchased is increasing every year (their own literature), but still, 4 or 5 or 10 million pounds vs. billions is still nothing.
Comment by bay area fair trade dude — January 11, 2006 @ 5:52 pm
In the end, BAFTDs shareholder resolutions show the mindset of some of the current shareholders, but could form the basis for a lawsuit by the other shareholders if not done on the basis of a business case. Sucessful resolutioins, and suits based those if not ollowed, are based on the idea that poor environmental stewardship is poor financial management because of destruction of good will and opening the corporation to lawsuits.
The fact is that the law requires a profit motive for any act a publicly traded corp does. That is not to say that some have not made the business case, but it is a harder one to make. A green process that cuts direct costs or lowers lawsuit costs is easy; FT is doable because it generates and sustains good will, an item with accounting value. Notwithstanding that SOME companies are coming around to green values as bankable, they must be bankable under the current law. My point was, this affects the corporate mindset — direct revenue effects tend to have more weight than indirect goodwill effects.
HOWEVER: The *advertised* promise of Starbucks is something else again — and if not lived up to, may well be actionable unfair trade practice under California law, at least, and a varient of false advertising. Promises made and advertised are different than underlying corporate culture.
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — January 11, 2006 @ 6:39 pm
Thanks Roger — I especially found that last HOWEVER part especially interesting. Maybe we can backchannel about the ramifications of Starbucks promises, and the corp’s failure to carry out those promises thus far?
Comment by Siel — January 11, 2006 @ 6:46 pm
The advertised promises are the key; the rest gets messy, except as verification that they made and failed, on the promises. This is one reason the 9 month SBX metric was so amusing . . . But I would not go here for, oh, say eight or nine months. Say “liability” out loud and suddenly nobody cooperates ever again. Better to work with the corp. getting the line folks up to speed — esp. since the corp types seem sincere . . .
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — January 11, 2006 @ 6:50 pm
I wonder, though (not being a lawyer) where the unfulfilled advertised promise is actionable. Consumers bringing suit on grounds of truth in advertising seems sketchy. The consumer isn’t harmed , per se, by sbux not making FT coffee available. This is an unfulfilled promise (bad customer relations) as opposed to lying.
Shareholders, on the other hand, may have standing. Perhaps they invested in the company based on its stated business practices… It’s hard for me to see where sbux can get legally dinged for the unfulfilled promise.
Comment by ButterChurn — January 11, 2006 @ 8:13 pm
I thought I heard somewhere that advertising was a kind of “free speech”, and thus not very “actionable” except in some very specific cases.
That shareholders piece is really interesting, though. Maybe some folks who really want to take some action on Starbucks ought to buy some stock, and truly take some “ownership” of the problem.
Comment by NC — January 12, 2006 @ 2:31 pm
In general, gaining a competitive advantage by making false claims about your products or services damages everyone. Advertising such as “the greatest” or the “the coldest” is called “puffery” and is non-actionable. But specific product specifications that are not true, used to bring a customer in (here, the greener ones) could be a form of “bait and switch” or just generic false advertising. Depends on the specifics of the law and the specifics of the claim but in general, in California, this is the rule.
Comment by Roger, Gone Green — January 12, 2006 @ 4:58 pm
Good to know, good to know. We’ll have to discuss this further, pending the mid-March challenge…
Comment by Siel — January 12, 2006 @ 7:52 pm
Let’s not forget that Sbx can withdraw their commitment any time they want. It’s is only a web page we’re talking about, right? A web page can be taken down as quickly as it can be put up.
Obviously taking it down would have PR ramifications, but if the expected negative PR of keeping it up was calculated to be be more than that of taking it down, it would be an easy decision to make.
Comment by beev — January 12, 2006 @ 10:32 pm
Well, considering that Starbucks agreed to sell fair trade AFTER the first WTO Seattle protests when a bunch of their stores got trashed, then made the announcement about this new “commitment to fair trade” just three days before the start of a national anti- Starbucks campaign planned by Global Exchange, I am guessing that Starbucks deems it within its interest to not get fair trade activists hopping mad.
So a website pull’s unlikely, IMHO…
Comment by Siel — January 13, 2006 @ 1:13 pm
I agree with what has been written about the legal ramifications of the claims that SBX makes about the availability of fair trade coffee in its stores. While I think that SBX is teetering awfully close to greenwashing, I think that it would be quite difficult to pursue false advertising claims in court. That said, I completely agree that the fact that SBX checks this blog quite often is pretty good evidence that they are unlikely to withdraw their website claims anytime soon — they know that there is a community of people who are watching their actions and aren’t going to sit quietly by. That’s a good thing.
I do find the shareholder activism comment made by ButterChurn promising. This is becoming an effective tool in holding corporations accountable. As Roger mentioned a bunch of comments ago, a while back I posted about the legal requirement that corporations have to consider the best interests of their shareholders in each decision that they make. (See this post and the comments.) Courts have interpreted the interests of shareholders in a narrow way to mean profits. That means that companies are legally required to put the maximization of profits above everything else. Until that legal framework is changed on a state-by-state basis, an effective route to pressure corporations to take other factors - social or environmental - into account in their corporate actions is activism by shareholders. Essentially, concerned citizens purchase shares of stock so that they become the constituency whose interests corporations are legally required to serve. Then, those shareholders submit proposals for the corporation to consider at its annual meeting of stockholders. While the proposals often do not garner the requisite votes to pass, publicity is gained if the activist-stockholders can include their proposal in the corporation’s proxy statement circulated in advance of the annual meeting and publicly filed with the SEC. Even if the proposal doesn’t pass, the PR often helps to make a business case for the corporation to adopt the shareholders’ proposal — at least in some part.
Comment by lauren — January 14, 2006 @ 7:30 pm