Three more branches of the Peet’s Coffee chain are facing efforts by their staffs to join a union, though a different one than the group employees of a unit in Davis, Calif., voted in January to represent them in contract negotiations.
That union, Peet’s United, is an affiliate of Workers United, the umbrella group that has organized about 315 units of Starbucks, Peet’s archrival. Workers United, in turn, is associated with the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, the nation’s second largest union.
The petitions filed last week by employees of three Peet’s stores in the Bay Area of Northern California ask federal regulators to greenlight a vote on joining the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the IWW or the Wobblies. That organization is believed to have hit its membership peak in 1917 as an advocate for factory workers and miners.
The IWW has found success in the chain restaurant business. Employees of five Burgerville fast-food restaurants in the Pacific Northwest voted in 2018 and ’19 to be represented by the union.
The group subsequently tried to organize employees of the 23-unit Little Big Burger, which is also concentrated along the upper West Coast. But that effort failed.
The stores that filed paperwork with the National Labor Relations Board are located in Berkeley and Oakland.
The IWW said in its announcement of petitions being filed last week that employees of the three stores are seeking better and safer working conditions, better pay, increased benefits and greater worker autonomy.
“Peet’s has the potential to be a great workplace, if they just listen to the workers,” Kai Dinneen, an employee of a Peet’s in Oakland, said in the IWW’s announcement. “We are frequently overworked, due to understaffing and insufficient resources, and required to work in unsafe conditions.”
Peet’s is owned by JAB Holdings, which is also the parent of Panera Bread, Einstein Bros., Krispy Kreme and Caribou Coffee.
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