Tag Archives: labor

Skillet settles over fired employees, wage theft and paid sick leave violations

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(Image: Skillet)

Capitol Hill-born Skillet has been nailed for wage theft and violations of the city’s paid sick leave laws after firing employees over taking sick time and in retaliation for raising issues over the restaurant chain’s policies.

“Working in restaurants for a decade, I always assumed there was a legal exemption which meant we were not entitled to rest or meal breaks. There is not. That is illegal. It does not matter where you work or how busy you are. It does not matter if it is the holidays, or someone called in sick,“ Zara Sedore-Mallin, former Skillet employee, said in the announcement from the Seattle Office of Labor Standards of a $324,000 settlement over the company’s practices. “We have amazing labor laws in Seattle. You deserve to be able to eat, rest, and earn your full wage when you are at work. You are legally entitled to do so.” Continue reading →

Worker who tried to organize Glo’s, owner talk about decertification vote, what’s next for Capitol Hill diner — UPDATE

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CHS reported last week on the vote by workers at Glo’s Diner to decertify its union representation and go it alone with management over issues of scheduling, wages, and workplace safety.

“We got union busted plain and simple,” longtime Glo’s employee, cook, and labor organizer Sean Case told CHS in an interview over the weekend following our first report on the vote.

Case said he has given his two-week notice over the decision.

CHS spoke to workers part of the 12 to 11 vote to end the representation who said, for them, their vote against certification was not an argument against the value of unions and worker rights but a specific decision based on their experiences working at Glo’s and frustration with the priorities of Restaurant Workers United.

In a statement, Glo’s owners Julie Reisman and Steve Frias said the change will help the business stabilize after a challenging start.

Workers part of organizing the union as the diner reopened this summer in its new location above Capitol Hill Station were not available to discuss the decertification vote with one telling CHS they were too shocked about the outcome to immediately comment. Representatives for tiny Restaurant Workers United — active in only a few workplaces across the country — also opted not to comment.

CHS first spoke with Case in April as it was announced that Glo’s management would voluntarily recognize the union amid organization efforts leading up to the diner’s planned reopening after its move to Broadway. “There are ideas about how our workplace can improve. We believed we were the people to decide that,” Case said at the time. Continue reading →

Workers vote to remove union at Capitol Hill’s Glo’s Diner

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A worker at the May opening of Glo’s above Capitol Hill Station

Workers at Capitol Hill’s Glo’s Diner say they have voted to end representation by Restaurant Workers United, opting to go it alone when it comes to working with management over issues of scheduling, wages, and workplace safety.

Workers who were part of organizing the union as the diner reopened this summer in its new location above Capitol Hill Station have not been available to discuss the decertification vote with one telling CHS they were too shocked about the outcome to immediately comment.

Representatives for the tiny Restaurant Workers United which has been active in only a few workplaces across the country also have opted not to comment at this time.

UPDATE 11/6/2023: CHS spoke with Sean Case, a Glo’s employee who worked to organize the union and opposed the decertification, here: Worker who tried to organize Glo’s, owner talk about decertification vote, what’s next for Capitol Hill diner

In a statement, Glo’s owners Julie Reisman and Steve Frias who voluntarily recognized the union this summer as they prepared for opening in the new location, said the change will help the business stabilize after a challenging start.

“Now that the staff is settled on this matter, we can turn our attention more fully toward what we do best, which is preparing and serving our food to our loyal guests and the greater community,” they write in a statement sent in response to a CHS inquiry. “We look forward to stabilizing our operations in our new space so we can re-engage with our local community and establish the best way to commence a new look community service program.”

The full statement from Glo’s ownership — signed Moving forward — is below.

Azriel Vovin, who tells CHS he worked with others among Glo’s two dozen or so employees to file the decertification petition, said the result of this week’s vote is not an argument against the value of unions and worker rights. Continue reading →

Seattle city workers march for better contract

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(Image: @PTE17)

A coalition of unions is calling for better wages for City of Seattle workers. More than a thousand people marched on City Hall this week as contract negotiations continue.

A dozen unions represent more than 6,000 workers and are pushing back on what they say is a disrespectful offer of an inadequate boost in wages.

Union leaders say they city has finally raised is cost of living adjustment from 1% to 2.5% in the multi-year proposal — a number they say still falls too short of inflation.

The city employees have been working without a contract since the last deal expired last year. Continue reading →

Mt. Joy launches ‘pasture raised’ chicken sandwich chain aspirations from Capitol Hill lot where labor questions still linger

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(Image: Mt. Joy)

(Image: Mt. Joy)

With reporting by Cormac Wolf, CHS intern

When a “pasture raised” chicken sandwich chain startup comes to the street and chooses the fenced-off parking lot where a global coffee giant shuttered a neighborhood cafe in a nationwide tiff over public safety and labor, the first question to ask in 2023 is about workers.

Tech entrepreneur and now aspiring chicken sandwich magnate Robbie Cape tells CHS he wants his employees to feel enriched enough that they don’t need a union, but acknowledged demands may come regardless.

“So unions will come in,” Cape said. “And some people have asked me ‘what would you do Robbie?’ I’ll be like ‘you know what? i put my arms around you..’ if we can fix it, let’s do it together.”

Cape was in the parking lot of the boarded-up, fenced-off E Olive Way Starbucks last week where Mt. Joy is launching its chicken sandwich efforts with an ongoing pop-up in the former “Gaybucks” parking lot.

CHS broke the news here in December of 2022 on Cape’s plans to team up with prolific Capitol Hill and Seattle-wide restaurateur Ethan Stowell to launch Mt. Joy with the first of what could be a 1,000 or more chain of the new chicken sandwich chain shops at 11th and Pine.

While the first restaurant is being prepared, Mt. Joy announced it would park its food truck in the E Olive Way parking lot of the now infamous former Starbucks location.

Mt. Joy has few hourly employees now, but the food truck workers said their wages start at $22/hour, below median income for Capitol Hill but above the starting wage of competitor Dick’s Drive-In and other local food chains. Representatives for the company have previously said they hope to open hundreds of stores, though in the midst of opening his first location Cape stressed the importance of getting their first steps right. Continue reading →

Starbucks illegally meddled with worker testimony in fight over Capitol Hill cafe unionization, labor board rules — UPDATE: Strike!

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Starbucks has lost another round in its ongoing legal fight against unionization at its stores across the country and here on Capitol Hill.

In the latest in a string of rulings against the coffee giant, the National Labor Relations Board ruled Starbucks illegally hampered a worker at its Broadway and Denny store from testifying at a board hearing. Continue reading →

The HoneyHole emails: a fired employee, thousands of dollars in rotten meat, and a Capitol Hill sandwich legend struggling with staffing and management issues — UPDATE

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A message HoneyHole ownership says was sent by a disgruntled employee after they were fired Sunday

It has been a rough two years and three months in the sandwich business in Seattle.

Sunday, things got a lot rougher for the HoneyHole.

“HoneyHole Owner Harasses Employees,” isn’t the kind of subject line you typically see on a marketing email blast to thousands of customers on a Sunday afternoon. HoneyHole’s social media accounts also lit up with the same message. “For the last two years under new ownership, hundreds of employees have been retaliated against, harassed, discriminated against, demeaned, degraded, and treated like a subhuman species,” it began.

“We Were Hacked,” read a second message that arrived a couple hours later.

But the damage was done. The first message spread across social media with calls for everything from a boycott to a sandwich protest as fans lamented possibly having to go without The Gooch and the Veggie BLT.

HoneyHole owner Kristin Rye, who purchased the legendary Pike/Pine sandwich shop and bar with her husband Patrick Rye and moved to the area in 2021 to grow the business, tells CHS that the HoneyHole remains open on E Pike and the “hack” was the actions of a manager who Rye said was fired Sunday. Continue reading →

As she builds ‘Workers Strike Back,’ Sawant takes on PCC working conditions fight

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As she winds down her decade on the Seattle City Council, Kshama Sawant is rallying around a workers rights fight at PCC grocery markets as she attempts to lay the groundwork for a national “Workers Strike Back” campaign. A press release from her City Council office says the councilmember will join a group of PCC workers at the company’s downtown location Monday afternoon:

Councilmember Kshama Sawant (District 3, Central Seattle), chair of the Seattle City Council’s Sustainability and Renters’ Rights Committee, will join the workers at PCC Community Markets for a press conference Monday morning, March 13, 2023. The workers, who are members of UFCW Local 3000, will expose poor working conditions, highlight their concrete demands, and announce a rank-and-file organizing effort at PCC stores across the Seattle area. Poor conditions for PCC workers were significantly worsened by the pandemic, and then further exacerbated when City Council Democrats rescinded the $4 per hour pandemic hazard pay late last year. The press conference will be followed by an informational picket outside the Downtown PCC to begin gathering community support. PCC workers’ contract expires later this year.

The city press release says Sawant and the PCC workers will be joined “by activists from Workers Strike Back, an independent movement launched by Sawant and her organization, Socialist Alternative.” Continue reading →

‘Captive audience meetings’ — Judge says Starbucks threatened workers leading up to union vote at Capitol Hill roastery

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(Image: Starbucks Roastery)

A National Labor Relations Board judge has dealt Starbucks another legal blow in a battle over last year’s unionization vote at its centerpiece Seattle Roastery on Capitol Hill as the coffee giant fights labor organizing at its store across the country.

Starbucks used meetings with employees to illegally threaten workers, violating federal labor law as it responded to the April 2022 vote including telling workers it would reduce or end benefits if they voted to unionize and telling them the company would prioritize prioritize non-union stores, the judge ruled.

“I believe the message from [the Starbucks representative] was objectively clear, if employees unionized the company would prioritize non-unionized stores for additional upgrades or benefits over the Roastery,” NLRB judge John Giannopoulos writes. “By threatening employees that future upgrades and/or benefits could be put at risk if employees unionized.” Continue reading →

A ‘refusal-to-bargain case’ — Starbucks loses first round in labor fight with Capitol Hill roastery’s unionized workers

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(Image: CHS)

Starbucks is violating labor law and must negotiate with union workers at its massive 15,000-square-foot Capitol Hill roastery despite the company’s objections to how the unionization vote was conducted, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled.

“We find that the Respondent’s conduct constitutes an unlawful failure and refusal to recognize and bargain with the Union,” the board ruling (PDF) issued this week reads.

The ruling comes as the coffee giant announced it will close its cafe at Broadway and Denny, the last stand-alone store the company has in the Capitol Hill neighborhood besides the huge Starbucks Roastery and the first shop in its home city to unionize.

In April, workers at the popular Melrose Ave roastery voted to join the Starbucks Workers United effort and unionize the store, at the time, the second location in the company’s home city to organize. Continue reading →