Fed Up With Management, Great Lakes Coffee Workers in Detroit Move to Unionize #DetroitFood
The Midtown location has been closed for more than a month amid concerns over alleged COVID-19 issues
It’s been more than a month since Great Lakes Coffee Roasting Co. in Midtown closed its doors indefinitely amid a COVID-19 outbreak that allegedly infected most of its employees. Now, workers at the cafe are moving to unionize.
So far, 19 out of 24 baristas from the company have signed union cards and are requesting that the company recognize UNITE HERE! Local 24 as its collective bargaining representative, according to an email that was sent to management on Tuesday.
Workers at the cafe have been engaged in an ongoing struggle with ownership over COVID protocols and have announced that they’ve begun demonstrating starting Wednesday morning.
In addition to picketing outside of the the company’s flagship Midtown location beginning at 7 a.m., baristas plan to also protest outside of the Rivertown Market on East Jefferson and Woodward Corner Market in Royal Oak, where Great Lakes Coffee also has locations.
A rally is planned in front of the Midtown store at noon on Wednesday, where protesters will meet with labor leaders and Detroit City Councilwoman Gabriela Santiago-Romero, who represents the city’s sixth district, says Diana Hussain, a UNITE HERE! spokesperson.
In the email, Great Lakes Coffee baristas and cooks allege that they brought several issues to supervisors including feeling disrespected by upper management, failure to establish communication, failure to consistently provide personal protection equipment, failure to enforce masking and other COVID protocols, unsatisfactory equipment maintenance, and unsatisfactory wages over the last several months, according to the email addressed to management:
Our attempts at communication have been dismissed, shut down or met with silence; we have received a concerning lack of communication from you regarding the state of our employment, Midtown’s ‘indefinite’ closure or ability to work at other satellite locations leaving us feeling disrespected and seeking resolution.
When the cafe and restaurant closed in early January, according to the Metro Times, several employees had tested positive for COVID, forcing the remaining workers to pick up extra responsibilities. Employees had asked for hazard pay and said that until all workers tested negative for COVID, they would not return to work, the Metro Times reported.
Eater has reached out for comment from Great Lakes Coffee’s management and will update this piece if we receive a response.
The move to unionize reflects a national trend in food-service industry organizing. Employees of the Wisconsin-based chain Colectivo Coffee, won a contentious battle with management last summer to become the largest unionized workforce at a U.S. coffee chain.
In December, a group of Starbucks employees in Buffalo, New York, made history when they became the first workers of the mega coffee chain to unionize through Workers United New York. Last month, a group of employees at a downtown Chicago Starbucks became the first of the company’s Midwestern locations to sign union cards. Meanwhile, hourly workers at four Michigan Starbucks locations announced plans in January to unionize (in Ann Arbor, Clinton Township, and Grand Blanc), followed by employees from an additional four Michigan locations (three more in Ann Arbor and one in Lansing) earlier this month.
Locally, baristas from the Ann Arbor-based chain Mighty Good Coffee launched a unionizing campaign in 2018 to improve labor conditions after a former worker accused the company of racial discrimination. The company closed down all four of its cafes in 2019 in the midst of employees’ first union contract negotiation, illustrating just how difficult the food-service industry is to unionize.
This story is developing and Eater will update this post when more information is available.
- Goose Island Beer Co. Workers Claim Brewery Laid Off Employees After They Tried to Unionize
- For Some Food-Service Workers, Unions Are Finally Gaining Steam
- An Inside Look at Union Organizing in the Fast-Food Industry
- El Milagro Locks Workers Out of Tortilla Factory After They Protest Unfair Treatment
- Fair Wages Are a Start, But the JuiceLand Strikers Continue to Fight for Industry-Wide Change
from Eater Detroit - All
Post a Comment