In late July, a group of Heine Brothers’ Coffee workers gathered downtown to speak about their jobs.
They weren’t there for a hiring event, or to promote the company. Instead, they criticized their employer and explained why they, like many other coffee shop workers across the country, decided to pursue a union.
“We are organizing for living wages, dignity and respect. I feel like it should not be so difficult for a seemingly progressive company like Heine Brothers’ to provide us, their workers, the face of their company, with these very basic things,” said Jasmin Bush at the press conference.
Bush, who works as a barista at Heine Brothers’ Hurstbourne location, is one of the Louisville-based company’s employees seeking changes by organizing with the National Conference of Firemen and Oilers (NCFO), a union that represents a variety of workers and is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Nationally, there’s momentum among service workers seeking to unionize and the movement has legs in Louisville, too. Like the Heine Brothers’ baristas, workers at three local Starbucks stores this year have made public their organizing efforts.
Staff at two locations, one in Louisville’s East End and one in Clarksville, Ind., voted in favor of unionizing and became the Seattle-based chain’s first employees in Kentucky and Indiana to do so. A national movement of baristas seeking to organize at over 200 stores has revitalized union efforts at a company that for...
Malaysia has taken steps to ensure continuity of the country's fuel supply as war in the Middle East has caused a global energy crisis, but social media posts continue to spread false claims about ...