On March 8, Lauretta Archibald marked her three-year anniversary as a baker for Colectivo Coffee Roasters, an upscale Midwestern coffee chain based in Milwaukee and Chicago.<\/p>\n
In her years at Colectivo, Archibald had been responsible for making artisan bread in bulk, sometimes baking 1,000 loaves a night. It was arduous work, and Archibald says that she did not always have the support\u2014or even materials\u2014that she needed: the bakery was understaffed for stretches of time, there weren\u2019t enough cooling racks and one of the ovens leaked the smell of gas through the kitchen.<\/p>\n
When workers at the coffee chain first announced their plan to unionize with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Archibald\u2014who eventually became a strong supporter of the union\u2014wasn\u2019t sure how she felt about the idea. \u201cI didn\u2019t know enough about unions to really say one or the other.\u201d Still, she says, \u201cI knew that something had to change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Workers say that last-minute scheduling, chronically broken equipment, and rapid expansion of the company brand spurred the union drive\u2014while issues around Colectivo\u2019s handling of Covid-19 popularized the campaign. <\/p>\n
Now, Colectivo\u2019s staff of about 375 workers faces an election that will decide the fate of a union drive nearly a year in the making, with ballots due on March 30 and counted in the first week of April. If the campaign is successful, the workers will make history: the industry is almost entirely unorganized, and Colectivo would become the largest unionized coffee chain in the country. But as bakers, warehouse workers and baristas mobilize support for the union, the company has responded with open hostility, hiring the Labor Relations Institute (LRI)\u2014a well-known union buster\u2014during the campaign. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are paid staff meetings where they're asking us, individually, to vote no,\u201d says Caroline Fortin, a shift lead at a location in Chicago. \u201cSo they\u2019re very explicit.\u201d<\/p>\n
In These Times<\/em> has also obtained copies of anti-union emails, \u201cvote no\u201d stickers and anti-union flyers drafted by Colectivo. <\/p>\n Management communications have invoked the anti-labor trope that unionization invites a harmful \u201cthird party\u201d into the fold, and charge that the IBEW should not be representing the coffee workers. (In fact, most historic trade unions now represent a wide range of professions; many members of the United Auto Workers, for example, work in the nonprofit sector.) <\/p>\n One email from management goes so far as to highlight the high rate of attrition from the company for pro-union workers. \u201cOf the 18 original organizing committee members, 10 remain employed today,\u201d reads the email. The email goes on to list union organizers by job title and work location, with red slashes through those who no longer work at Colectivo. <\/p>\n Indeed, workers say that the anti-union campaign has gone beyond propaganda and disinformation.<\/p>\n When the union drive went public in August 2020, Zoe Muellner, a cafe worker, attached her signature to a letter notifying Colectivo of the plan to organize. She says that after the letter was released, upper management\u2014with whom she interacted regularly as a barista trainer\u2014stopped answering her emails and cut social ties. <\/p>\n A career barista, Muellner had worked in the coffee industry for six years\u2014and Colectivo, for two\u2014when the company cut her position as a trainer in October 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cI asked if that meant I was done with the company in general, or if I could essentially take a demotion as a caf\u00e9 coworker until they needed me back on in my position. And they said there were no positions available for me ... but go ahead and file for unemployment, kid.\u201d <\/p>\n Muellner and the union say the layoff amounts to retaliation. <\/p>\n Also in October 2020, Robert Penner\u2014a specialized machine operator in the Milwaukee warehouse\u2014was abruptly let go. Penner had taken part in \u201cunion talk\u201d since 2019, and like Muellner, had come out in public support of the campaign in early fall of 2020. <\/p>\n Penner says that the company requested that he come back on board following a voluntary pandemic-related furlough in the summer\u2014but before his first shift back, he was told that Colectivo no longer needed him. Since his departure, the company has resorted to filling Penner\u2019s position with baristas. <\/p>\n \u201cThey were pulling in cafe workers who weren\u2019t trained to work in the warehouse,\u201d says Kait Dessoffy, a shift lead at a Chicago cafe. <\/p>\n Archibald says that she had a similar experience after speaking up at an anti-union meeting held by an LRI representative.<\/p>\n \u201cMe and another coworker specifically, we challenged everything he said,\u201d Archibald says. \u201cAfter that night, that guy knew we were for the union.\u201d<\/p>\n In the weeks following the anti-union meeting, she noticed changes at work. Archibald was required to quickly train her coworkers in braiding Challah bread\u2014a job that was formerly one of her specialties. At the time, Archibald thought it was \u201cweird\u201d that managers had requested to inspect her coworkers\u2019 practice loaves. \u201cNormally, when we did practice stuff, it was really just practice,\u201d she says. In retrospect, she believes management was getting things in line for her departure. <\/p>\n About six weeks ago, Archibald was abruptly moved off of her usual duties and instead instructed to prepare English muffins, a job for which she says she was never properly trained. She adds that management rapidly increased the number of biscuits she was required to bake\u2014400 one night, then 500, then 900. <\/p>\n \u201cIt felt like they were setting me up, you know, hoping I fail,\u201d she explains. <\/p>\n Finally, on March 16, Archibald reports that she was fired for taking a smoke break. She left Colectivo just a week after her three-year anniversary with the company.<\/p>\n LRI, whose website brags that the firm \u201cliterally wrote the book in countering union organizing campaigns,\u201d has been identified by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) as one of the largest union-busting firms in the United States. The company made a popular debut in the Oscar-winning 2019 documentary \u201cAmerican Factory,\u201d which follows a union-busting campaign by a Fuyao Glass Company factory in Ohio. <\/p>\n According to company disclosures to the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), Colectivo pays LRI $375 an hour for services retained. <\/p>\n Even absent the involvement of a \u201clabor consulting firm\u201d like LRI, employer retaliation is endemic in union campaigns. In 41.5% of union elections in the United States, employers receive Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges\u2014 and surveys of labor organizations suggest that the number of instances of employer aggression during union campaigns is much higher. <\/p>\n