[calciphus]

In the US they pay for your college (at Arizona State University) if you work at least 20 hours a week, and offer you stock. Their base wage is well above the competition and minimum wage in most locations here, before tips (another US oddity).

There are always reasons to form a union, but I would be surprised if adoption was particularly high. Starbucks ranks highest in employee satisfaction among national fast food chains. https://www.comparably.com/companies/starbucks/happiness

> are fired the moment they declare they are pregnant

In the US this is illegal and a really easy lawsuit to win. Does Switzerland not have laws protecting workers from being fired for being pregnant?

[cdirkx]

Maybe they are not exactly fired (not familiar with Switzerland myself) but I know of constructions of keeping people (mostly women) constantly on 3-month temporary contracts. Those contracts then don't get renewed if someone is pregnant.

[yati]

Yes I confirmed, this was what happened. The shitty part is that there was no obligation for this person to declare, they did it to be transparent, and their contract was never renewed. This in a store that is understaffed, constantly hiring with high churn.

edit: I noticed that they hire a lot of expats, and probably also why get away with it: If you're an expat who e.g., followed your (unmarried) partner into Switzerland, boy do you have to jump through hoops to stay. To these people, Starbucks is actually a lifeline.

[Talanes]

In San Francisco, with our specific set of labor protections, Starbucks is merely competitive. But so is Union grocery work: which either pays better or worse after dues than comparably easy to get jobs depending on whether you need the insurance or not.