Another union drive is brewing at a Peet’s Coffee location in the East Bay.
Workers at the Peet’s Coffee on Fourth Street in Berkeley said they filed a petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board Monday.
The workers wrote in a press release that they believe starting a union shop will allow them to “fight for better control over hours, higher wages, longer breaks, better training, and for worker power, among other demands.”
If successful, the 17 of the store’s workers would join three other Peet’s locations in Berkeley and Oakland in unionizing with the Industrial Workers of the World IU 640. In 2023, Peet’s workers at the Southside Berkeley, Temescal and Piedmont locations each voted to unionize.
Peet’s Coffee spokesperson Mary O’Connell said in an email that the company plans to “respect the NLRB process and will follow the process consistent with federal labor laws.” She said all Peet’s Berkeley locations are currently “at nearly full staffing,” noting that Peet’s employees are covered by a new California law that raised minimum wage for fast food employees to $20 per hour.
The union drive in Berkeley is part of a nationwide labor movement in the coffeehouse sector.
Starbucks coffee shops around the country, including multiple in Berkeley and Oakland, have recently formed unions. The downtown Berkeley Starbucks voted to join Starbucks Workers United in August 2022. And in April, employees at Philz Coffee on Gilman Street unanimously voted to unionize, becoming the chain’s first location to do so.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Starbucks over the NLRB in a case that makes it more difficult for the labor board to win court orders halting labor practices contested as “unfair.” The ruling could have far-reaching impacts on workers hoping to organize a union in their workplace.
Peet’s Coffee’s first store opened in the 1960s on Vine Street in North Berkeley. There are now 287 locations across the U.S., with most in California, according to Peet’s website. The company is headquartered in Emeryville.
In the press release, workers alleged that as Peet’s has grown from a small-batch specialty roaster to a large corporation and that workers now “face understaffing, lack of training, work intensification, and wage stagnation, leading to deteriorating service.”
In 2023, the Berkeley City Council passed a resolution supporting the three union drives at Berkeley and Oakland Peet’s locations.
This story was updated after publication with additional information.
