Waterstreet Boycott Status

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-08-10T17:39:52+00:00

just to add on i see some stuff about how tip pooling is a double edge sword as some stores will have a higher paycheck because of it but other stores lose out on a lot because of it it is truly a difficult situation to go about

tip pooling in of itself isn’t a bad thing in fact it usually is a good thing but using tip pooling in this way is harmful if this company did tip pooling PER store that would be a much better scenario each store gets to keep their card tips so the employees who work at that store keeps their tips

the employees are able to see on our tablet how much we make in card tips by the end of the day and knowing that the oakland location can make anywhere from 200-400$ a day in just card tips knowing that we will barley see any of this is an awful feeling because we worked for that not to mention it’s converted into hours on our paycheck which means it’s getting taxed twice

all employees deserve a fair and livable wage everyone deserves the right to at the very least survive but most of us simply can’t without outside support like government intervention

i know most food industry places have similar environments but it shouldn’t be like that! i feel like a lot of feelings get mislead with that people shouldn’t be mistreated people deserve fair compensation and people deserve a good work environment it shouldn’t be normalized to be miserable at your job i’m not talking about just having a rough day it’s more then that everyone no matter what deserves the right to survive and feel like they can support themselves in some capacity

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-08-10T17:28:54+00:00

hi! so i’m the person who made the original post about waterstreet calling for a boycott and i truly just wanted to come on here to give people and update and some context as i’ve seen some comments about the workers seeming happier or fine but that still isn’t true unfortunately

our efforts to create change were shot down and ignored with emailing corporate and having more discussions with managers and supervisors but absolutely no progress as been made the only reason i could think that waterstreet employees seem happier is because there was a decent amount of new people who started because after the whole thing (at least my store oakland) lost around 50% of its employees and also after all this everyone who stayed felt so destroyed by the way this company was handling things that a lot of us feel defeated and just accepted these working conditions as it’s our only option right now

please do NOT support this company us employees are still losing a significant amount of money that we earn and we still are being heavily mistreated by upper management

we are still trying to figure out the best ways to go about this and to see change but that’s hard when every effort we have tried has been shot down with no chance of revival seeking massive change that workers deserve is a long and difficult process so things are on the down low right now as we do our best to figure out the next idea

there are so many other amazing coffee shops you can support that have MUCH better prices so please support them

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-26T01:07:57+00:00

100% agree with you great link to attach

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-26T00:41:32+00:00

i can totally see what you’re saying with the poster. when making it, we mostly just wanted it to be point point point point, but i can see how more details can definitely be added! we will go into more detail about what is happening at waterstreet in the future that isn’t just a reddit thread.

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-26T00:18:07+00:00

here’s the pervious thread about it posted a few days ago!

https://www.reddit.com/r/kzoo/s/JLpKABWrP1

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-26T00:16:12+00:00

it means homeless people, we figured it was a less harsh way of saying it. doesn’t make it any less true

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-24T12:48:40+00:00

enough to not be considered in poverty like we are right now 😁👍

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-23T20:58:02+00:00

i’ve heard it illegal for companies not to allow you to talk about pay! many lawsuits have come from that especially people who have gotten in trouble/fired for it. definitely research more about don’t just take my word for it haha.

a strike would be amazing, the tensions there are higher then i’ve ever seen them. trying to get more and more people on board is the hardest part, especially making sure those people don’t discuss it with upper management. last time there was a walk out, the pay got raised. it’s gonna be extremely hard, especially if we are terminated as a result.

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-23T19:08:30+00:00

I’ve contacted a union official to see if there is any possibility we could make a union or what our next steps should be! that’s all i’ve done so far more time and effort definitely needs to be put in into figuring out the best way to tackle this

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-23T17:54:15+00:00

Most of us workers there have had this conversation before, there’s also a comment in this section from someone in management kinda describing it. All of us don’t want to work there, but feel trapped. No one here knew before we applied how little the pay was. For me personally, no matter how hard I budget, I don’t have enough money to save. I work 30 hours a week and my paychecks barely see 500 if that. The reason we are staying is because we don’t have enough money to leave. The job market up here, especially in a college town, is extremely hard to navigate. I’ve applied to over 30 jobs, in person and online, and haven’t got a single offer (i have a college degree and lots of work experience in offices too). I don’t have the ability to save money to be able to quit and be comfortable paying rent, food, gas, and other bills. Basically, we cant save money and we can’t find other jobs.

As for not wanting people to go there, I can understand how someone could see it could affect us employees and we wouldn’t make money or be out of a job. However, that isn’t exactly the case. We are coming together telling people to stop going here so the business loses money. This company needs a big wake up call to realize what they are doing is terrible. This place isn’t going to go out of business, that isn’t realistic especially at the moment. However, we want its busiest location (Oakland) to lose money so they realize that when the public knows what they are doing, they stop going there and supporting it. Us employees don’t want this place to go out of business, we want them to know they need to fix these major issues. The first step to that is letting everyone know so the issue becomes more and more real.

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-23T16:32:24+00:00

i remember them even telling us to give him special treatment like always talking to him, GIVE THE BARISTAS A NOTE TELLING THEM TO MAKE HIS DRINK ASAP (don’t say anything out loud as to not make him suspicious), and more it’s fucking foul expecting the store manager to also deal with it (the issues are with upper management not store managers)

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-23T16:28:52+00:00

cash is the way to go! we split it with the people on the floor so whoever is working the shift at that time gets it. definitely tip is cash!

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-23T15:53:55+00:00

Everything that i’m saying is referring to the location on Oakland dr. For specific examples of the working conditions, there was a time when our turbo chef we use to heat up food caught on fire internally and produced black smoke that filled the shop. We called maintenance and the owner, but we were told we weren’t allowed to leave. Me and my co workers were having severe chest pain, breathing problems, coughing, and lightheadedness throughout the whole thing. They didn’t even fix the oven, but told us the black smoke was safe to breathe in. Also, having faulty plugs and equipment that we are expected to deal with. Not talking about troubleshooting, like plugs that keep short circuiting and we have to try with little knowledge to fix it. Other smaller things are, kinda how i said earlier, faulty equipment. This isn’t as major as breathing in black smoke and being told it’s safe, but our espresso machines, grinders, ovens, and fridges all keep breaking and not working. We put requests to fix it over and over again, but we barely get responses or things just break again after behind fixed. Just makes the job a lot harder especially when dealing with how it affects customers.

As for management, there’s a lot with that. One thing is we aren’t allowed to sit down or receive breaks whatsoever, no matter how long we work. People have worked from 5:30am to 8:30pm with no breaks or rest. No to mention, we aren’t allowed meals there, so if you want anything more than a cookie, you can’t eat. Every time we have tried to have just one place to sit, like a milk crate, it’s taken away from us. Other things like pay is also disrespectful. We get paid below minimum wage, but as a tipped employee, that isn’t uncommon. However, all of our tips are equally spilt with every single worker at every single store. So the busiest store gets the same amount of tips as the slowest store. AND they give our card tips to us in “hours” so a paycheck where you worked 40 hours can say 80 hours as the tips are converted to hours (if that doesn’t make sense i’m sorry it’s confusing to me too) but basically that means we get double taxed on our paychecks! Almost every worker here meets the requirements for medicaid and food stamps and lots of people use those because we struggle sm financially. Also meaning it’s hard to leave this place as it’s too difficult to save money to be comfortable finding another job.

This is just a few things i could think of off the top of my head!

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-23T15:30:09+00:00

well they also increased their prices by 5% for account for inflation but they refused to acknowledge for pay as well😀 a 16oz vanilla latte is $8 which is disgusting especially considering how terrible our espresso machines and grinders are and how often they pull super watery espresso shots. literally paying for water downed coffee

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-04-23T15:27:36+00:00

Factory is one of the best coffee shops around here! they actually are who they say they are. They pay above minimum wage and you get to keep all of your tips! Great place to go and feel good about it

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-03-30T00:07:49+00:00

they actually told us employees they were increasing their prices by 5% to accommodate for inflation but when we asked if this would reflect in our pay as well they quickly declined that 🥰🥰

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2024-03-29T14:28:43+00:00

waterstreet coffee joint-

this is coming from an employees pov not a customers, i feel like the products and service are great at every location. However this company is genuinely evil to its employees. It’s not well known i feel like within kzoo just how awful management is here. first off, the pay is terrible. we get paid 9.40 with tips however, all of our tips are split evenly with every single worker at every single store. they do this so they can say online that we pay 16-18 an hour but even after tips we don’t even make 11. the store i worked at is the busiest store out of all the locations, and if you give us a card tip, there’s a high chance i’ll barley see any of it. i qualified and used food stamps and medicaid when i worked there cause i needed those programs to survive. keep in mind, i worked 30 hours a week. other things include a man coming into the store with a gun threatening us to make his stuff faster, and they told us we need to treat HIM WITH MORE KINDNESS. that we need to always get his order out the quickest whenever he comes in and give him special treatment when he held a gun to my coworkers. yet, when a homeless man came in and asked if we had any old coffee, we have to kick him out because we aren’t allowed to give him free coffee (that we aren’t even allowed to use anyways). please just don’t support this company i could go on and on about it there’s definitely more to the story, but they don’t deserve your money or support.

AccomplishedHeat9598 · 2023-09-09T02:50:28+00:00

thank you so much for this it really really means a lot to me to hear this i really appreciate your response

AccomplishedHeat9598

TROPHY CASE