Before Starbucks workers in Buffalo, New York, started Starbucks Workers United in August 2021, setting off a wave of Starbucks workers’ organizing, unionized coffee had begun to take root locally. Two months earlier, Boston-area Pavement Coffeehouse locations – including one in Harvard Square – were the first Massachusetts coffeeshops to unionize, and were among the earliest coffeeshop unions in the country. Their first contract, ratified in early August 2022, helped set industry standards for unionized coffee.
Coffeeshop unions near Pavement spread quickly: Workers at former Cambridge coffee chain Darwin’s unionized in September 2021. In Somerville, Diesel Café, Bloc Café and Forge Baking Company and Ice Cream Bar employees followed suit that December. Workers at Cambridge’s 1369 Coffeehouse unionized in June 2022.
These coffeeshops and their fellow members of NEJB Unite Here Local 325 are building on Pavement’s original and second contract and on each other’s work in their current contract negotiations.
Blank Street
Blank Street Coffee, with one location in Harvard Square and six others around the Boston area, unionized in a landslide election June 23. Its workers had reached a supermajority of authorization cards in the spring and delivered a letter May 5 to their employer asking for voluntary recognition, which was not granted.
Isa, a service pro at Blank Street’s Harvard Square location who requested to be identified only by her first name, said unionization was important and hopes the union will bring higher pay for workers.
Winning a first contract is a top priority for the new union.
“Less than 50 percent of recognized unions actually get to a first contract; doing so is a really tough fight,” said Emma Delaney, an organizer at NEJB Unite Here. “Unionizing is just half of it – the first contract is the other half.”
Blank Street’s union aims for a contract that aligns them with the industry standard set by fellow coffeeshop unions, said Barrett Yueh, a business agent with NEJB. In addition to baseline expectations around financial matters and scheduling protections, standard coffeeshop contracts include provisions around communication between employers and employees, such as respect for employees’ gender identity and expression.
Diesel, Bloc and Forge
Diesel, Bloc and Forge – unionized coffeeshops with the same management – reached a tentative agreement for their new contract Aug. 4.
If ratified, the contract – DBF’s second – would preserve the benefits enshrined in the shops’ previous contract. It would also include a “respect and dignity” clause and protections for employees who try to deescalate situations with customers, as well as updates to wages, paid time off and health and safety measures.
“I am excited about seeing those new proposals coming into effect and really changing the safety of our workplace and building upon the contract before,” said Lea Tatoris, a shift runner at Diesel who serves as a union steward and executive board member.
DBF’s previous contract, which began in February 2023, expired July 31. It is not uncommon for contracts to expire during negotiations, Delaney said. If ratified, the new contract will last until July 31, 2028.
1369 Coffee House
With locations in Central and Inman squares in Cambridge, 1369 Coffee House entered into negotiations for its second contract Aug. 5. Language from DBF’s tentative agreement is already informing negotiations, as is the contract Pavement negotiated last year, Yueh said.
Although the details of the ongoing negotiations are private, generally, “the priority of any coffee shop reentering negotiations is to take what the other shops have gotten and make an industry standard and improve the industry standard each time – so the next shop can take that and then make that a little bit better,” Delaney said.
The current contract for 1369, which began in August 2023, expires at the end of this month.
Industry standard comes full circle
When Pavement Coffeehouse ratified its first contract in 2022, it was “massive, because it was a very new industry to be unionizing,” Delaney said. “Setting any standard at that time was massive.”
Pavement helped establish standards around respect for gender identity, immigration rights and bereavement leave. The latter includes a contractual definition of chosen family; workers can use their sick leave or bereavement leave for loved ones who fit this definition, not just for blood relatives.
Other coffeeshops adopted and built upon provisions like these. When Pavement negotiated its second contract last year, “a huge highlight for workers was … seeing how the standard has grown, and getting to adopt that into their own contract,” Delaney said.
An instance of coffee shop unionization seeming to go awry was at Darwin’s Ltd., a Cambridge coffee chain that lasted 30 years. Darwin’s employees unionized in November 2021 – about a year before owners Steven and Isabel Darwin announced the chain would close all four of its locations, with some bitterness for labor actions: Steve and Isabel Darwin said workers marching to their home Oct. 30 and holding a rally outside “resulted in the acceleration of our decision to retire.”
All four locations are now new coffee shops. The Circus Cooperative Cafe is a worker-run business that opened in September 2023 in one of its former spaces at 31 Putnam Ave., Riverside – launched by former Darwin’s employees and still serving some menu items familiar from Darwin’s.
A stronger
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