Baristas From Blank Street Coffee Express Intent To Unionize The Company's 7 Boston Locations – CoffeeTalk

Employees from Blank Street Coffee, one of the fastest-growing national coffee chains in the country, have expressed intent to form a union across its seven Boston-area locations. After gaining approval from roughly 70 employees across the chain’s Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge shops, employees delivered a letter to Wendy Johnson, Blank Street’s U.S. director of operations, asking her to voluntarily recognize their effort to organize a union represented by the New England Joint Board of Unite Here. Johnson and a representative from the company’s “people team” declined to comment on the union effort.

In a letter delivered to Blank Street’s regional management on Friday, employees expressed their desire to “stand in solidarity” with several Boston-area cafe chains that have successfully formed unions in recent years, including Pavement Coffeehouse and Diesel Cafe. After launching an effort to unionize in 2023, workers at Blank Street’s New York City locations were able to ratify a contract earlier this year. The Boston organizers’ letter says that having the support of a union will ensure workers are protected along the way, attract and retain employees, as well as draw in new business from community members who increasingly want to support the large ongoing coffee workers movement in New England and the rest of the country.

Blank Street, which began in 2020 as a single coffee cart in Brooklyn, New York, expanded rapidly with dozens of new locations cropping up across New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and the United Kingdom, buoyed by millions in private equity funding. The business model emphasizes efficiency: locations are small, online orders are incentivized, and only two or three baristas are scheduled on an average shift. The bulk of the actual coffee-making is performed by a super-automated Eversys espresso machine, designed to create consistent, uniform beverages with the press of a button, so staff can focus on customer service.

Barista Nicole Hill, who has worked at two Blank Street locations over the past year, said the machine-powered ideal doesn’t always play out perfectly in practice, largely because of ongoing technical problems with the machines that employees are not authorized to fix on their own. Aubri Covington, who has worked at the Blank Street location in South Boston since October of last year, says it happens frequently enough that it’s easier to just do some tasks manually, like steaming milk or prepping simpler drinks.

Emma Delaney, a former barista at Pavement and organizer with NEJB Unite Here, hopes the company will recognize the union and its purpose as a way to give employees a seat at the table.

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