Louisville coffeehouse workers tell owner they want the right to their union, not just their pronouns

The evident progressive values of this coffeeshop
stopped when a possible union was in the offing, as
the statement below by the workers pro-unionization
movement asserts.

Visitors to Heine Brothers Coffee shops are greeted by large photo displays assuring them the multi-national fair trade coffees sold in this Louisville-area chain are helping the world's poorest improve their lives.

When they make their purchases, signs by the counter tell customers each employee's name - and their pronouns.

Heine Brothers shops have satisfied the political leanings as well as taste buds of left-of-center Boomers, X-ers and Millennials since opening in 1994 in Louisville's eclectic Highlands district. And any nearby BLM rally, jazz festival, or Reiki practitioner is sure to be promoted by fliers inside one or more of the 17 Heine Brothers shops in greater Louisville.

Heine Brothers owners are glad to open their shops as gathering places, discussion spots,

and organizing hubs for advocates in 

struggles for justice everywhere --

except at Heine Brothers, apparently.

On June 30, the Heine shop in a historic neighborhood called Douglass Loop was closed permanently by order of company owner and co-founder Mike Mays -- in the middle of the afternoon with not even one minute of advanced notice.

Mays then instructed workers to ask all customers in the store to leave immediately.

Heine Brothers workers involved in a unionization group called HB Workers Union said the stunningly swift closure at Douglass Loop wasn't by chance. They said that shop's employees were among the prime movers in that union drive, which was being made in conjunction with the Service Employees International Union.

Mays told public radio station WFPL the company's reasons for closing that store were not anti-union. He said that while every other Heine Brothers location outside of downtown had drive-through service, the design of the Douglass Loop store -- a tight triangle based on an early 1900s street car turnaround -- precluded drive-through.

An online statement by HB Workers Union members, however, called that explanation for the sudden closing, "outrageous and highly suspicious, considering this location has some of the most outspoken and visible union supporters who have been leading our organizing campaign.”

Douglass Loop Heine worker Gami Ray told online news source Spectrum News 1, "Our store was the first store to show up completely to the [union organizing] meetings; as well as the first store to complete our petition signings. We’ve been the most vocal about it online.”

Pro-union activists also have cited this statement in April 2022 by a Heine Brothers spokesperson on Louisville television station WHAS as indicating that stopping a union was a concern of the business, and consequently a prime motive for the Douglass Loop closure:

“While we respect our employees’ right to organize, we believe that, as a locally owned and operated company, Heine Brothers is well positioned to address the ideas and concerns of our employees without the involvement of a union."

Strategic battles at Heine Brothers'
Douglass Loop coffeehouse
once were a game, but now
are a human rights struggle. 

The Douglass Loop Heine Brothers conflict typifies the duality of businesses leaning left on social egalitarianism while sharply opposing economic egalitarianism.

The train of locally owned progressiveism classically slams to a stop when going left means threatening corporate assets, instead of just taking ethical stances which also help create new markets. Those can include the LGBT+, immigrant and refugee, and neuro-diverse people who made up much the the Douglass Loop store's customers, and its workers.

In the historically pro-union city of Louisville, the national trend of coffeehouse baristas unionizing is alive: a Starbucks in Louisville's eastern suburbia has unionized. Moreover, the recently formed Old Louisville Coffee Co-op in that historic central city neighborhood is worker owned.

The Douglass Loop former Heine Brothers location will soon get a new tenant; a craft brewery will move in, and will sell Heine Brothers coffee.

Workers at Heine Brothers throughout the Louisville area will continue their unionization drive, which began in early 2022 after workers got no action from their request that the owners reinstate a customer mask mandate they felt was needed to protect their heath from Covid.

Inside and out, a conspicuous
inactivity at Douglass Loop.
 Is that meant as a chilling message
to union activist baristas?

Organizers said increasing wages to livable levels from the basic $9.25 Heine Brothers pays is a central purpose of the effort to unionize. They also said the immediacy of the Douglass Loop closing underscored the need for a union, as being unionized would have required advance notification which would give workers time to negotiate better closing terms and look for new jobs.

A statement posted by the Heine Brothers owners inside the window of the closed Douglass Loop store, however, said that store's manager and employees had all been offered positions at other Heine Brothers locations. (Mays told media that offer also includes stipends to help with the transition, or severance benefits.)

On the window's outside a printout of an HB Workers Union twitter statement was recently posted. While noting that the Heine Brothers company projects a progressive image via Fair Trade coffee and the embracing of gender fluidity, the statement asked: "What's progressive about abandoning the workers who have run your store for years? What's progressive about abandoning the workers who learned the names of your regular customers?... We, the Heine Brothers organizing committee will not be intimidated or silenced by threats of store closures or other anti-union activity. Organizing is a right."

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Brian Arbenz lives in Louisville, where he supports struggles for just wages and benefits.