1 day Ago By Katelyn Umholtz
By Katelyn Umholtz Dozens of employees walked out on their shifts at Blue Bottle Coffee this week, leaving five of the six Massachusetts locations of the Nestle-owned chain without baristas. The staged walkout was part of the Blue Bottle Independent Union’s response to the company stalling contract negotiations that began in October. Alex Pyne, an employee at the Chestnut Hill location who also serves as the union’s vice president, said the company told its workers they were going to install security cameras in their Massachusetts stores two weeks ago.
Installing security cameras had been part of the contract, as was paying baristas a living wage and providing protections against customer harassment, and agreeing to just cause protections for discipline, Pyne said. But the union claimed that the company “illegally declared impasse in negotiations” because of the company’s threat to install cameras before agreeing to other parts of the contract. We walked out across 5/6 Blue Bottle locations in MA today, shutting down their stores.
We are committed and ready to take further action not only over BB’s ULP’s, but to win the demands we know would make our lives better, like just cause for discipline. The unionized baristas gave the company until noon Tuesday to recommit to negotiations. Workers also led a march on the boss last week, in which they made their demands clear and posted videos of workers reading statements on social media.
Pyne said they didn’t hear anything from the company, so around 30 workers walked Tuesday, closing locations in the Seaport , the Prudential Center, Newbury Street, Kendall Square, and Chestnut Hill. The only cafe that didn’t participate was the Harvard Square location of Blue Bottle, which Pyne said is the cafe where a worker was fired last year for allegedly supporting union efforts. “Let us be clear: Blue Bottle is not attempting to install surveillance cameras to improve café security, they are doing so to bust our union,” an Instagram post read.
“While our priority in bargaining sessions has been fighting for a democratic workplace with livable wages, scheduling security, and protection from harassment, Blue Bottle’s myopic focus has been on forcing discussion on surveillance cameras. They feel so much disdain for their workers that they believe that they can steamroll us without negotiating on the rest of our current package.” While the union thought the negotiations on protections would be a fair trade for cameras, Pyne said the company agreed to give the union use of bulletin boards inside the cafes, “which is laughable.
” Boston.com reached out to Blue Bottle Coffee’s press e-mail, but didn’t hear back in time for publication. Blue Bottle’s Boston workers unionized last spring because the company “does not pay us enough to meet our basic needs, does not allow us any input into cafe operations, and shows continuous disdain for us as workers,” according to a statement last year.
BBIU joined a wave of other area coffee shop workers that had also unionized in the last few years at Pavement , 1369 Coffee House, and Starbucks . The same week that Blue Bottle employees walked out over security cameras, it was also reported that Blank Street Coffee workers were moving to unionize its Boston locations. Katelyn Umholtz Katelyn Umholtz covers food and restaurants for Boston.
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