Employees at Salt City Coffee gathered in front of the organization's University Avenue location on Monday. They called for the company to recognize their union. Credit: Eddie Velazquez | Central Current

Salt City Coffee United, a group of workers organizing a union at the Syracuse-based coffee shop and roastery, and local elected officials held a press conference outside the University Avenue store on Monday, calling on company leaders to recognize workers’ efforts to unionize. 

Central Current first reported on the union effort last week, when 40 baristas, bartenders, barbacks, and coffee roasters at the company’s four locations and its roastery filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to form the first union at a locally owned coffee company in Syracuse. 

Since then, workers say the company has not acknowledged their effort to form a union, despite knowing about the workers’ intentions for at least the past two weeks. They say they invited company leadership to attend the rally Monday. No company representatives were present at the rally.

“We said we should move forward together, we let them know we want to work collaboratively,” said Julian Guy, a barista and coffee production worker. “We haven’t heard anything.”

Aaron Metthe, a co-owner of Salt City Coffee, declined to talk to Central Current by the time of publication.

At the rally, workers solidified a list of demands, calling for better wages and benefits. A group of local elected officials, labor leaders, and representatives from the offices of state officials including Sen. Rachel May, Sen. John Mannion, and Assemblymember Pamela Hunter, also read letters calling on Salt City Coffee ownership to respect the workers’ rights to organize a union and embrace their efforts to collectively bargain.

“We are here to fight to make sure that this is a proud union coffee shop,” said City Auditor Alex Marion. “We will not stop fighting until every worker in Syracuse who wants a union can join [one] that protects their jobs, their decency, and their integrity.”

Workers also called for the continued employment of head roaster Connor Thornton, who was notified by Metthe last Monday he would be laid off in two or three weeks time due to performance reasons. 

Thornton and Salt City Coffee United allege news of his dismissal came in retaliation for his union organizing efforts, which have been ongoing since the start of the year. They say they will file an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB if Thornton is not reinstated.

“It was really out of the blue, and I really would love to just get back to my job,” Thornton said.

Thorton and Salt City Workers United alleged the coffee company became aware of the union the Friday before his firing. He was formally notified of his dismissal at 1 p.m. on April 29. The organizers formally sent their notice to Metthe at about 5 p.m. on the same day and did not appear on the NLRB website until April 30. Workers have since refiled the petition with federal regulators on Monday due to a technical error. 

The union effort at Salt City is aided by Workers United, an affiliate of the larger Service Employees International Union that helped kick off a wave of workplace organizing at several Starbucks locations in Buffalo two years ago. 

To unionize, workers would need to be voluntarily recognized by the company, which is what workers have demanded from ownership, or win a union election to be certified under the National Labor Relations Board. 

If the company opts for a union election, workers said they have a list of 12 fair election principles they would like the company to follow, including no ad hominem attacks against workers, no threats to workers’ employment, and no retaliatory action for workers who want to join the union, among others.

“This unionization effort is a reflection of that same surge to improve our city, our community and the lives of the people around us,” said Quinn Etoll, a barista at the company’s University Avenue location. “We hope to not only be the first union coffee shop in Syracuse, but to get the ball rolling for everyone else.”

Eddie Velazquez is a Syracuse journalist covering economic justice in the region. He is focused on stories about organized labor, and New York's housing and childhood lead poisoning crises. You can follow...