Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

"The pay could be better ... the pay is not the best ... the pay may be lower than you expect". Even positive comments posted in April and May on glassdoor.ieby Starbucks and ex-Starbucks workers criticised the low pay. Starbucks pays a bit above the minimum wage but significantly less than the living wage. It has 70 coffee shops in the Republic of Ireland, which is more per head of population than in any other country in Europe. All of the shops are licensed out to Entertainment Enterprises, the same company that runs TGI Friday. This company had an annual turnover in this State last year of €22.5 million, which represents a lot of cups of coffee. Internationally, it made profits of $15.8 billion in 2020 alone.

For those workers who left the comments on glassdoor.ie, there is some hope if they look to what is happening in the USA. Last December workers at Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, voted to join the Starbucks workers' union. Votes to organise a union were won in ten of the next 11 coffee house ballots and plans are under way to organise all 170,000 Starbucks workers in the USA. A feature of this campaign is that it has been led by the young workers in the coffee shops themselves rather than by paid union officials. I would love to see Starbucks workers organise here to tackle low pay. I would also love to see a campaign for a national minimum wage of €15 per hour, vitally necessary now for young workers in particular given the deadly combination of low pay and sky-high rents. I would love to see this not just for Starbucks but for other low-paid workers too. Amazon workers, for instance, have recently organised in the USA also. Any young worker interested in help or advice on these issues can feel free to contact my offices at any time.

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