As Starbucks and Good Karma unions face big challenges, Philly’s other coffee shop unions are still moving toward a contract

Last year was busy for Local 80, Philly’s labor union for café and coffee shop employees.

Its first bargaining unit, Korshak Bagels, reached a first contract in May 2022. Good Karma unionized in March 2022, then Elixr Coffee, Ultimo Coffee, Reanimator Coffee Roasters, and Eeva pizzeria all did so between fall 2022 and January 2023.

“These campaigns are led by workers,” said Lily Fender, a negotiator for Local 80. “That’s the legacy we’re going to continue and build.”

While the unions celebrated their elections, that wasn’t the finish line for getting the work conditions they wanted.

At Good Karma, three of four stores closed months after workers unionized, and the union was facing possible decertification — a process akin to a recall election — with voting on Thursday.

Meanwhile, organizers at Elixr, Ultimo Coffee, Reanimator, and Eeva say they’ve been surprised by how long it’s taking to get a contract.

“The process is much slower than we would like it to be,” said Felix Kulik, lead negotiator for the union members at Elixr. “We are kind of dragging along.”

Philly’s Local 80 organizers are part of a national trend of unionizing at small cafés and coffee shops, a story that is playing out against the backdrop of a highly public fight between Starbucks and Workers United, which represents baristas at the Seattle-based coffee giant.

Café unionization efforts built momentum in a job market that became extremely tight following recovery from COVID-19 shutdowns. More recently, the job market is cooling and people aren’t switching jobs as frequently, leading some to wonder whether workers might lose the power they gained in the Great Resignation.

But union approval is still high, and organizers are forging ahead in hopes that their efforts will lead an industrywide shift in jobs that are among the lowest-paying in the country.

Labor lawyers maintain that the process for Philly coffee shops is working as it is supposed to.

“As with all negotiations, the parties are going to have differing views on some items, which the parties must work through in the bargaining process. These negotiations have been no different in that regard,” said Paul Sopher, Elixr’s lawyer.

Ultimo Coffee’s lawyer, Steven Paisner, noted that first contracts on average take over a year to negotiate.

“We’ve been working through some very unusual union proposals,” Paisner said.

At Ultimo Coffee, for example, union leaders proposed a layoff procedure “not based on seniority or ability, but rather, on how much money employees claim to have in their bank accounts,” and a lateness policy that “would excuse employees from any consequence even if they arrive hours late for an unverifiable reason,” according Paisner, the employer’s lawyer.

Union negotiators agree that their approach is novel.

Kate Lord, lead negotiator for Ultimo Coffee’s union, says the union’s layoff language didn’t mention bank account balances but considered employees’ alternative income sources to avoid terminating “the people who would be the most greatly impacted by layoffs.”

She said the lateness policy idea wasn’t meant to allow tardiness for no reason but to “shift away from fear and toward building culture rather than having policies that are about force.”

“To call our proposals ‘unusual’ doesn’t mean that they are flawed in some way, it just means we’ve approached things a little differently, and we’re proud of that,” Lord said.

Elixr, Ultimo Coffee, Reanimator, and Eeva will soon start negotiating economic terms of their contracts. It’s “the highest-pressure portion of the campaign,” said Fender, the Local 80 negotiator.

Korshak Bagels and its union are also back at the table negotiating a new contract, Fender said.

The union wants better wages at all shops, ideally with members “being paid well by their employer and not being subsidized by the customer” via tipping. For all of the union members, keeping the right to strike has been a major priority.

Local 80 negotiators from different shops have collaborated, sharing drafts and amended language. Their leaders said they expected more collaboration from their bosses as well, but they’ve mostly been interacting with their employers’ lawyers.

“We don’t expect to be able to anticipate every possible situation that might come up over time but are working hard to think through as many as we can so we can create a sustainable framework for the future,” Mark Capriotti, cofounder of Reanimator and Eeva.

While most of the unionized Philly cafés are moving toward contracts, at Good Karma, the process has been interrupted.

Baristas at Good Karma’s four locations voted to unionize in March 2022 — 20 for the union, three against and six who chose not to vote.

Three of the company’s four shops shuttered within a year. Nesbit gave non-union-related reasons, like staffing shortages and building and equipment repairs. When he closed a third shop for renovations, Nesbit also alleged that “a significant sum of money was embezzled from this location.”

Local 80 organizer Eli Zastempowski contends that the three shuttered stores were all locations where bargaining committee members worked. Employees were not transferred to remaining locations and learned they would have to reapply for their jobs when their store reopened, according to the union.

One of the closed shops recently reopened, but contract negotiations paused after a group of employees petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to decertify the union.

The employee who started the decertification petition, Marco Camponeschi, is represented by the National Right to Work Foundation (NRWF). The same organization is working to decertify Workers United at several Starbucks locations, an effort that faces legal obstacles because of allegations of union-busting against Starbucks.

“Good Karma Cafe will continue to commit to our values of providing a happy, supportive environment for our employees and customers,” owner Shawn Nesbit said. “We have maintained from the start we will respect our staff’s decision on how to create that environment.”

Workers seek union decertification much less frequently than they file for union representation. Last year, representation elections overseen by the NLRB outnumbered decertification elections by nearly 10-1.

Zastempowski acknowledged the decertification petition and said they understood that Camponeschi was against forming a union last year as well. Because of staff turnover, it’s unclear how many union supporters are left, Zastempowski said.

NRWF spokesperson Jacob Comello declined to say how many employees had joined the petition but said that it met the 30% threshold required by the NLRB.

“If we win this, that’s a ton of added pressure in negotiations,” Zastempowski said.

As the Local 80 organizers negotiate, several Starbucks locations in Philadelphia are among hundreds struggling to get a first contract after unionizing within the past year.

The company has faced hundreds of unfair labor practice charges throughout the United States, including in Philadelphia. Starbucks Workers United went on a bus tour this summer to demonstrate with bargaining units throughout the country, stopping in Philly in July.

Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull said that the company wants to see progress toward first contracts at unionized stores and that there had been a full day of bargaining with the 10th Street and Market Street store in Philadelphia.

Frances Beaver, lead union negotiator at Reanimator and Eeva, said the Starbucks union drive has been a useful “cultural reference” when trying to explain what’s going on at Local 80, but the dynamics are different.

“There’s this big, giant, insane battle going on [at Starbucks], while the rest of us are actually sitting in a room with people talking,” Beaver said.

Reanimator employee Malek Hudson notes that local café owners are often more visible to their employees than Starbucks’ leaders. And they’re less insulated from the costs associated with labor violations than a large corporation like Starbucks.

“Everything we’re talking about is so concrete and can be traced to real people,” said Kulik, the negotiator at Elixr.

Still, Kulik said, watching the Starbucks baristas’ campaign and proposals “made it seem possible” for Local 80 members to push for similar changes.

That could go both ways, Hudson suggested.

“Once we have our contract, the Starbucks campaign will have a better idea of potentially what they can win,” Hudson said. “If we, as small campaigns, can win wildly progressive contracts, we now set a standard for the industry.”