Starfucked: There Goes The City. Would You Like Some Sugar With That?

dublin | consumer issues | feature Saturday November 26, 2005 19:32 by choking on the filthy froth of my double half-caf latte - the gap-wearing, mcdonalds-eating, starbucks-drinking radical alterno kids of the central bank MAAAN every street in the city - extremely soon six six six (mobile: 086 666 666 6)

Another multinational rolls into town unopposed.

Two and a half years after it was reported on Indymedia that Starbucks were planning on bringing their business here, the coffee chain finally opened their first city centre outlet on College Green, right next door to the historic Bank of Ireland building, and a stones throw from the front gate of Trinity College, the oldest university in the state. Starbucks first Irish cafe opened up several months ago in the new Dundrum Shopping Centre, in the southern suburbs.

Starbucks have a touch of the cute hoor about them when it comes to the presentation of their cafes. Conscious of the backlash against the white and yellow plastic generic decor (and equally plastic food) of global fast food chains, instead they have constructed their premises in warm, organic, earthy browns, greens and oranges, selling the customer a relaxed atmosphere and image of luxurious radiance brought on by the warm afterglow from drinking one of their nuclear reactor size coffees. This is also the case with the Dublin cafe. There are many cafes around the city where you can relax and unwind - but for the most part at present, these cafes are independently owned and operated, without a massive global corporation behind the scenes.

But seriously though, whats the problem with them coming here? If people enjoy their coffee, like the premises, and their business does well, isnt that the invisible hand of the market giving the public what they want? Simon, the owner of "Simons Place" cafe in the Georges Street Arcade, said "The [Irish people] vote with their feet and their wallets. They generally get what they want. People seem to want this trend of big drinking factories, and in the last few years they've sprang up all over the place. Starbucks probably would be successful here." Judging on their success and expansion in the UK, undoubtedly the company is not going to rest on its laurels with its two stores in Dundrum and College Green. Expect them to heavily dot the landscape in the coming months.

Starbucks have a history of "cluster marketing" and aggressive startup policies when it comes to setting up shop in a new city. Although the book is slightly dated, and at this stage somewhat naive in places, Naomi Klein's "No Logo" well documents this process of how the multinational crushes all native opposition and existing independent cafes when it steamrolls into a city. "Rather than dropping an enormous big box on the edge of town, Starbucks' policy is to drop 'clusters' of outlets in urban areas already dotted with cafes and espresso bars. This strategy relies just as heavily on an economy of scale as Wal-Mart's does and the effect on competition is much the same. Instead of opening a few stores in every city in the world, or even in North America, Starbucks waits until it can blitz an entire area and spread, to quote Globe and Mail columnist John Barber, "like head lice through a kindergarten." It's a highly aggressive strategy, and it involves something the company calls 'cannibalization'." You can read a full excerpt about Starbucks here.

Three issues of contention with the opening of Starbucks are their attitude towards their workers, their use of non fair-trade coffee beans, and the homogenisation of city streets. The third one I have a particular bone of contention with. The last thing Dublin (or any city) needs is another global corporation stamping its bland, uniform, and lets face it, typically American vision of business into the psyche of the city's collective mind. There are many independent cafes out there who are being swallowed by rising rents, the Winding Stair being a prime example. This was a familiar outlet, with a beautiful bookshop underneath, selling second hand and rare antiquarian books. Now it is closed for good, with the shutters pulled permanently down. Starbucks, with its massive backing of capital, can open and operate (even at a loss) where it pleases. I find it incredibly depressing walking around yet another city that has succumbed to the lure of the yankee dollar. The ubiquitous logos and recognisable icons mean that the experience of difference and finding out spaces for yourself is gone. We're having a monoculture dictated to us by rich capitalists in Seattle. It could be Any Street, Europe - thats the way they like it.

Starbucks have a distinct policy document on Fair Trade (PDF) but only a very small percentage of their sales actually comes from fair trade coffee beans. You get the impression though that this is another example of eco-washing, similar to McDonalds making overtures about healthy diets and nutrition for kids, while still serving up the same old Big Mac. A challenge was drawn up by bloggers in the US, where Starbucks is everywhere, to see if one could actually get a cup of fair trade coffee in a Starbucks outlet yielded some interesting results - mostly negative (not available at the moment, staff did not know what the customer was talking about, etc). The company themselves responded with phone calls stressing their credentials, but anecdotally they just arent living up to their promises.

Anyway, if they're going to exist (grim fact of life) surely they should be selling ALL fair trade coffee? If multinationals actually adhered to some ethical principles, you get the feeling there wouldnt be such anitpathy towards them. If you have to ask specifically for a distinct brand that guarantees decent prices for coffee growers in the developing world, isnt the implication that the rest of their produce is traded and bought via exploitation and environmental damage? Global Exchange say that "Coffee farmers are becoming even more impoverished, going further into debt and losing their land due to extremely low world coffee prices. Meanwhile coffee companies such as Starbucks have not lowered consumer prices but are pocketing the difference, even taking into account the quality premiums in the specialty industry. According to Fair Trade Labeling Organizations International, Fair Trade farmers sell only about 20% of their coffee at a Fair Trade price. The rest is sold at the world price, due to lack of demand. Demand can be created by large corporations selling Fair Trade."

Recently their practices of exploiting their workers through precarity have come into the light, with employees beginning to unionise themselves. The first three unions in the US have affiliated to the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), and have served the company with notices demanding the management end their anti-union campaigns against the baristas, as well as guaranteeing a minimum working week.

According to the union, the workers were motivated to organize in part because of Starbucks' status as one of the few companies in the world with no full-time employment for non-managerial employees. An initiative of Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz, the part-time scheme forces workers to contend with a constantly fluctuating number of work hours, and therefore, constantly fluctuating income. For example, a Starbucks barista could receive 35 hours of work one week, 18 hours the week after, and as low as single-digits in the following week. The world's largest coffee chain sacrifices employees' financial security in the name of cost-control and "flexibility." This comes from a company whose mission statements talks of, "provid[ing] a great work environment."

Employees in the IWW talk about how the company wangles its way out of providing employees with health benefits by cutting their hours down so they would end up with an average week of 19.75 hours - just under the 20 hour average that would guarantee benefits under the 401K plan, which includes basic treatment such as dental, medical, vision, etc. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, Starbucks staff in one cafe in Auckland, New Zealand went on strike after discontent with low wages had been brewing up for some time. The strike went so well that other cafe workers across the city joined in on a wildcat action, and were joined by workers from McDonalds, Pizza Hut and KFC. Their demands mirrored those of the American unions. It seems that low pay and "flexible" working hours will more than likely be the norm for the Dublin cafe workers too - because a global multinational corporation is hardly likely to change its stripes just because its new here in Ireland.

queue out the door for coffee.