A US judge has ordered Starbucks to repay its California coffee-makers more than $100m (£50m) in tips that were paid to shift supervisors.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Patricia Cowett said the coffee-makers - "baristas" - were entitled to $86m in back tips, plus interest.

 

 

She issued an injunction banning supervisors from sharing future tips.

 

She said the practice broke a state law barring managers and supervisors from obtaining a share of employee tips.

 

A Starbucks spokeswoman, Valerie O'Neil, said the company planned to appeal against the ruling, which she described as "fundamentally unfair and beyond all common sense and reason".

 

The lawsuit was filed in October 2004 by Jou Chou, a former Starbucks barista in La Jolla, California.

 

In 2006 the suit was granted class action status, allowing it to go forward on behalf of as many as 100,000 former and current baristas in the chain's California stores.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7308233.stm

Good news for Starbucks employees.

 

It's only a matter of time until a Starbucks opens in Andover, there is enough empty shops down town where shops have been forced out due to the high rent, and it's not like Andover needs another coffee shop, it already has 9 with 2 more being opened in the next few weeks.

I abosolutely refuse to go to these coffee shops....they charge like 3 or 4 quid just for a coffee that you could make at home for, say, 20p. It makes me cringe at how much money the people in this country waste on 'essential' coffee breaks. They should wake up to the fact we are paying WAY too much for things...an article I read the other day was saying that people dont even blink at paying nearly £2 for bottled water. Ridiculous.

But those people who spend £2 on a bottle of tap water are the sort of people who get paid too much money.