... ask MNers to boycott Starbucks?

[legoballoon]

Personally, I won't be spending any money there again.

When I read the 'we pay our fair share of tax' statement, I almost choked on my (home made) hot chocolate. It's one law for the rich, another for us now is it?!

I think we should support small, UK-based independent coffee shops. Let's support businesses that generate wealth that is shared by local people.

It's a drain. I'll be honest.

WEARY!

True, they pay salaries and it wouldn't work if all of them pulled out, however, if just Starbucks pulled out then some of those local coffee shops I have seen opening and closing over the last year or so would have survived - at least 5 coffee shops in and around our town and there is one more I bit will be closed by Xmas.

And they would have employed staff.

The demand would be met soon enough.

Never used Starbucks anyway, and think anyone that does is a fool. It's just people buying into a brand that they think makes them look trendy. Plus the quality of the drinks are DISGUSTING.

Bwahahahaha at people buying into Starbucks because it is 'trendy'...

I do know a huge amount about tax, Pag. I'm a very boring and geeky minion of satan.

You want to get a Starbucks in your hand Cinnebar. You would look like a trendy sort in no time.

Tax experts and accountants are party people. Actuaries are evil dementors.

FACT

Please don't boycott - the workers in local coffee shops are local workers; irrespective of their employer - Starbucks as a global brand won't suffer but the local JobCentre queues will grow.

A petition would be kinder to the Starbucks workers.

It was 'trendy' when I was at uni a couple of years back. It was a student hang out... where you sat looking all studious with a massive cup of coffee and your laptop -while you browsed facebook-

while you browsed facebook
ahem

I do not boycott anyone who does coffee I like. I don't use our Starbucks because seating is upstairs and we have another great coffee shop 100 m down the road.

I do hate Costa, its in our local Tesco store and their latte is horrible. I don't use Tesco so much anymore, I go to Lidl as well now - can't win on the multinationals though.

Will go and use a local butcher now though.

OK, so let's get rid of Starbucks and give the little guys a chance.

BTW I do commercial lettings and the number of coffee shops that open and close is quite amazing. But it's not down to Starbucks as we don't have a branch here, it's down to ill thought out business plans and inexperienced owners. The number of folk who ring me with their fab idea of opening a coffee shop, which no one else has ever thought of, and can I find them some premises? You can see from the off which ones are going to close within the first 12 months.

I hate to say this but i suspect certain MNetters are maybe a little too Middle Class & well-off to understand what it is like when you work in a semi-skilled or unskilled job as a career.

How many of you actually get to know the people who serve your coffee & think of them as your equals?

How many of you understand how it feels to stand in a JobCentre & feel totally desperate??

If you did then there would be less of the smug righteous attitude around here i think (sorry but it has to be said!!).

I did actually give the little guys near my work a chance (they have a whole website which could essentially be summarised as "we are FABULOUS, Starbucks is crap"). It took them 20 minutes to artfully make a very average capuccino it definitely did not revolutionise my life in the way they promise: "With one sip, your coffee options dwindle to a precious few: a mere handful of skilled baristas capable of meeting your newly enlightened needs."

I go to starbucks because it's close, the coffee's half decent and I think they put crack in the mochas, which is why I love them so much. And none of this "ooh,you can't be a real coffee drinker if you go to starbucks" crap. Pre my massive Caffeine Intake Downsize, I was having 4/5 coffees a day. It doesn't get more real than that.

I have to agree there, the coffee shop I know will close by Xmas is in a residential area, on a corner. I drive past several times per week but there is never anyone in there - of course, most people who would walk past are going into town and are not far from home. Its predictable.

On the other hand, I would like to see more local businesses, not just the boring old Starbucks, Costa, Tesco ...

Tbh I am not blown away by the coffee. But they are the franchise at DDs swimming lesson place. I am there 6-8 hours a week. I can get a coffee at 7.00am. It keeps me awake, especially now I ask for an extra shot.

I've heard the same is true of restaurants, Funnys - is that right, in your experience?

Before the DCs came along, I did volunteer work for the Prince's Trust mentoring small seed businesses who received grants of up to £5k from the Prince's Trust to start up. It was depressing how ill thought out some of the business plans were. (I don't mean not written in accountancy language, or anything like that. Just completely unrealistic expectations about the hard work needed to drum up business. Or failing to do any research into the level of demand for their business. Or forgetting to factor in basic but important costs, like rent or salaries.)

That said, even the businesses that looked sound on paper went belly-up. One was a candle-maker who turned out to be a pyromaniac and was jailed for burning down his girlfriend's house. The other was tree surgeon who fell out of a tree one day and developed a phobia of heights.

Actually, i wonder how many of you smug righteous boycotters sneer at the local so-called 'chavs' on benefits - because that's exactly what a boycott will do - put more people on benefits.
(& i hate the word 'chav' - it's snobbish & i still hear it used far too much!).

Starbucks won't give a shit about the workers either of course, because businesses often don't.

Same with Tesco. The 'local butchers' don't employ the amount of people who have jobs at your local Tesco - & how do you know if the 'local butchers' treat their workers any better - in fact do you actually care?

I'm leaving this thread before i get even more pissed off.

That is what the multinational do - they de-skill jobs so they can employ people at minimum wage. It's not seen as a profession/skilled trade as in some other countries. If you want to be a waiter in a top hotel in Switzerland you have to be qualified (2 year apprenticeship) and speak 2 languages - that was 20 years ago, I am not sure whether that's still the case. But the waiters saw themselves as skilled professionals and they knew what they were doing.

Cinnabar red, if it helps, I'll boycott Greene King for you. I worked in one of their pubs years ago, and they were dreadful employers too. Thing is they are protected to an extent because they are not such a visible presence.

Genuine question: how do the multinationals de-skill jobs?

I can't see how being a barrista in an independent local coffee shop is any more skilled than being a barrista in Starbucks. Both need food preparation and hygeine knowledge, customer service skills, possibly manangement and HR skills for the shift leaders, cash management skills.

I'm pretty sure that top waiters in the UK also see themselves as skilled professionals, and rightly so.

gabsid - people here CANNOT AFFORD the qualifications to get skilled ffs. Many people dislike education, leave school early & WANT unskilled or semi-skilled jobs.

Your post typifies the out-of-touch attitude that many posters on this thread have, sorry.

Many people don't want to be 'skilled professionals' or actually ARE NOT clever enough.
Many people are brought up in homes where all that matters is the wage; education is unimportant - that is how many REAL people see life.

They just want to work hard & bring home a wage - without having to jump through hoops to qualify to do so.

I know someone who worked as a delivery driver for a local florist with 3 shops. He worked long hours, was expected to speed to to meet deadlines and didn't get paid overtime. In the end he was made redundant.

But, fund a new job the next day - for a national fruit seller, regular hours, no overtime and can buy fruit and veg at cost price - seems a more sensible and secure job.

But in the UK vs other countries, waitering/coffee shop work etc. is not considered to be a skilled profession, like it is in other countries (e.g. France where you have many professional waiters, their pay is better, service charge is included in the price of the meal etc.).
That's not a "multinational" problem. That's a "local culture" problem.

On the flipside, there are also many multinationals which require highly skilled workers, e.g. BP (engineers, geologists, accountants, lawyers, oil rig workers), Tata Industries, P&G etc. They're not all employing minimum wage workers to do low-skilled work.

I know because the people i describe are friends, family, neighbours - people who want to work but have no interest in education past age 16 (or younger if they can get away with it).
If the jobs that those people can do are taken away then you throw a whole load of people onto benefits - except they are being cut too. Then what??

Absy - so, because I want to make sure I understand your point correctly - are you saying that waiting/coffee shop staff are seen as unskilled in the UK irrespective of who they work for? i.e. it could be Starbucks or the local independent, but in either case the staff wouldn't be thought of as skilled people? And that's an issue caused by UK culture rather than the presence or absence of multinational companies within the UK?