Baristas poised to set a precedent for part-time workers across the country
Union leaders and employers across the country are watching with bated breath as a group of baristas in Nova Scotia are brewing up a bid to unionize.
At the end of July, employees at a Second Cup coffee shop in Halifax applied to the Labour Board of Nova Scotia to join the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2, after two baristas from a Just Us! café successfully did the same.
The move is a rare one for so-called precarious workers, who historically have been underrepresented by the labour movement. Because these workers traditionally are recent graduates or in-between jobs, the sector is virtually untapped by unions — and has the potential to set a precedent across the fast food and retail industry.
But Shelby Kennedy, the 21-year-old barista at Second Cup hoping to unionize, argued the landscape of the labour force is changing.
"I am not a transitional worker," she said. "I have been working in the coffee industry since I was 14-years-old, and I’m 21 now. I have been a student and I know that not everybody comes out of university with a job, so people end up staying at their café jobs for a number of years. I think we need to be secure and have really good working conditions for those situations. Even for the part-time people who are transient — they deserve respect and dignity at work as well."
Their motivation, Kennedy said, is to be heard. For instance, she argued concerns such as working long shifts alone would not fall on deaf ears if her coworkers belonged to a union.
A ‘hopeless cause’
Howard Levitt, an employment lawyer with Levitt LLP in Toronto, called the case "a hopeless cause."
"At the end of the day, there’s no real fixed employee group that are going to develop historic employee loyalty to a union, if they ever get in," he explained. "They’re very hard to unionize, the young employees who generally work there. Young workers have not been a fertile breeding ground for unionization in this country, which is one of the biggest problems the union’s been having, so that’s the target market."
In theory, however, the concept has revolutionary potential to inject new blood into the union membership base — something which Levitt said is dwindling. Since a substantial chunk of the public sector is organized, there are very few inroads unions can make there in order to significantly expand their numbers.
On the other hand, there is a coffee shop on just about every block throughout the country — with potentially tens of thousands of employees ready to join the union movement.
But another major obstacle Levitt cited is the fact that big companies have the resources to squash any whispers of unionization. Chains such as Second Cup can either run the store with temporary employees and lose a few customers who won’t cross the picket line, or shut down the store entirely with relative impunity. As a result, baristas and other part-time and temporary employees at restaurants and retail establishments are turned off of unionizing because their jobs could be temporarily filled, and going up against a big chain could diminish any bargaining power — not to mention might end up in decertification.
"They’ll maybe let the store shut down eventually, or just run it with temporary workers, better yet, and let the employees strike literally forever, and never offer them more than they already had. So it will all be for nothing in the end," he said. "It’s interesting insofar as it’s a great potential, theoretically, for the union movement…but as a practical matter, it simply won’t succeed…They’ll get their flush of a sense of victory and then they’ll get crushed."
Traction south of the border
Despite that, the union movement is gaining traction at fast food chains south of the border. On July 29, thousands of fast food workers in the United States walked off their jobs at restaurants such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Wendy’s, demanding the right to form a union without reprisal. Those employees were backed by groups such as Action Now and Jobs for Justice, as well as the SEIU.
Back in Halifax, Jason Edwards, an organizer with SEIU Local 2 said, combined with inroads being made in the U.S., the industry is ripe for the picking.
"When people started talking about it, it was a little bit surprising because it’s traditionally not an organized industry, but it made perfect sense. Some of the conditions that were described to me and the type of people I was speaking to, eventually I realized this was inevitable," he said. "Based on what I’ve seen that’s happening in the States, it looks like it’s happening with baristas in this town and moving well across the country. I think based on the work and the changing demographic of the people doing the work, I think that it will probably just grow and grow."
Most of the demands Edwards has heard from workers echo those from Kennedy, and involve fairness and respect — such as not having tips taken away. He advised employers that if their workplace is a positive environment, it will likely be smooth sailing should their workers launch a union drive.
"People aren’t going to push for a union if their rights are respected as much. But at the same time, if people join a union at their workplace and they’re respecting their employees, very little changes," Edwards said. "Basically, instead of them following a road map that they are the only ones enforcing, it’s just both sides get to reinforce the same road map."
For Kennedy, the battle remains an uphill one.
"If I want to make things better, I need to take a stand. I need to hold my ground and not succumb to pressure. I’ve learned that, working with my coworkers as a team, we’re strong people — and we’re even stronger when we work together."
