OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the structural frame
2. Apply the structural frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

Starbucks coffee company has been faced with one of its most challenging issues in the
last few years, unions. When a store chooses to unionize they appoint a rep who acts on
behalf of the union and they try and negotiate new benefits and pay for employees, it is
important to note that salaried employees cannot be a part of a union. I have been apart of
Starbucks for almost ten years now and over the past four years union talks have spread
through the organization like wildfire, I see the benefits of the unions and the negatives of
unions. Regardless of my own personal beliefs back in 2021 the CEO of Starbucks sent
out a “kill the union” memo, this was only sent to a select number of executives but was
quickly leaked to the public as the wrong people were CC’d in the memo. The company
failed to investigate why partners were wanting to bring in a union and immediately went
on the defense, a bad move in my opinion. The issues at hand for the unions being
brought in were employees felt as though the company was prioritizing profit over people
and that tenured employees were not treated as they mattered. The issues that were
initially at hand quickly spread into more and more issues and the company tried to shut
down the unions by shutting down stores that were in union talks and by illegally firing
people who were organizing unions. The issue was brought to congress in which the CEO
Howard Shultz had to testify to what all had been done, it still didn’t stop the company
from trying to stop the unions at all costs.
The company is still fighting the unions to this day and are not taking
responsibility for its role in union busting, making many partners feel they want to
unionize even more. Having been around in the company for years I see all the good the
company has to offer and how much the company has given me, I feel no need to
unionize as I have a wonderful manager who treats me with dignity and respect, and I am
given a free college education. I do see the other side though of people wanting to get
more out of the job that demands so much from its employees. As a manager I was
expected to try and get a feel for what partners in my store were thinking in terms of

1
 unionizing and report this back to the company. It did not feel like the right thing to do
and I decided to just try and stay out of it the best I could. Today, if union talk is
mentioned around me I try and leave the conversation as I do not want to be a part of any
of the discussions, I do not want to try and stop the unions as I plan to leave soon if this is
the wishes of the partners, but I do not also want to “betray” the company by not
reporting what all is going on.

2) Describe how the structure of the organization influenced the situation.

The structure of my current company influenced the situation by making it appear the top
executives did not care about people working for them. It was made clear to us that this
decision of unionizing was not a demoracy vote but rather partners who had made the
decision to call in the union were the enemies. The divide between salary and hourly
employees, one which already had slight turmoil, grew tremendously not only by the
partners wanting to unionize but by the rest seeing how upper management treated the
situation. No clear plan was made except by our CEO and his trusted vice presidents and
the rest of us seemed to be scrambling around trying to get answers and trying to find a
solution to this issue. Making matters worst hourly employees felt no other option then to
try and unionize for they felt fear of getting fired if they did not all stick together, this
took options away from many people who were undecided on wether they wanted to keep
working in a corporate store or become a union represented store.

The structure of the top is the top and they deserve to be in the know with what is going
on internally is okay at times as I do understand there is often sensitive information that
should only be in a few hands however, with the issue we had at hand seeing flyers for a
website that was very confusing on what the message was they were promting, was not
what partners needed. We all needed clear information regarding the status of the
situation, we needed people talking to younger partners about the pros and cons of unions
so they could make an educated decision on if this is what they wanted and we needed
leadership to step up and take responsibility instead of passing the blame.

3) Recommend how you would use structure for an alternative course of action
regarding your case.

When dealing with a crisis as we have seen throughout modual two, communication and
having a set plan in place is crucial to succeed. When dealing with a situation in which
people are scared and do not have the whole story of what is going on this leads to
confusion and from here we see things start to go very wrong. In the case of 911 we see
how lives were lost by confusion, no one knowing what they were expected to do and had
the proper plan been put into place this may not be the case today. (Bolman & Deal,
2017) In terms of my organization I would have a plan put in place for emergencies not
just for upper management but for all employees, knowing who to report to would save

2
 us all so much time and confusion. At the time of being tasked to listen out for unions I
had no real understanding of who I was to report information too and what would come
of this information. Our chain of command changed very quickly after and a lot of us
tenered partners were unclear on what we were expected to do with information that was
being thrown at us.

Had a more democratic approach been taken I do feel it would have helped ease the
minds of partners who were on the fence about unions or who did not want a union in the
first place. It would have also helped with everyone feeling as though they had a voice to
speak up and voice their concerns instead of causing many people to hide their opinions
because of fear. I would have set up direct leadership models to help people know who to
report to and when, I would have had more of our upper management in stores seeing
issues and hearing what its employees were feeling and how they could help. I do not
have all the answers when dealing with an organization of this size but I do know that
having a direct chain of command in situations that are of importance in place is crucial.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

As far as my part in this case study I for the most part tried to stay out of it as much as I
could because I myself did not have all of the facts. I wish I could go back and get all the
required information that my partners were requesting and presented them with the facts.
I do not think I would take a back seat if I were able to go back and change things. I did
not want a union at my current store but I could see why people did, I would have tried to
convince more people of the negative connotations that would come along with the union
being brought in but I decided to let them decide for themselves. Although our store
chose not to unionize I wish there was more I could have done in terms of getting the
partners what they needed which was having their voices heard by higher ups in the
company. I do feel I did my best when I was presented with someone asking me
questions but at the same time I did not have all information needed to help someone
make their decision, often I see my influence work in the benefit of partners in my store
and its for the better but I usually have all knowledge about issues at hand and in this case
I did not. I would not have acted any different on my stance of spying on partners as I felt
and still feel this is an invasion of privacy and that what they discuss unless it’s an ethical
violation is their own business. I did not allow anything to happen on my floor that was
unethical but I also did not try and pry information out of my partners.

3
 References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E.

(2017). Reframingorganizations. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119281856