Verve Coffee workers in Santa Cruz, San Francisco push to unionize on Labor Day

Workers at three Verve Coffee Roasters locations in Santa Cruz and San Francisco launched a unionization effort Monday, demanding better wages, benefits and more decision-making power from the Santa Cruz-based artisanal coffee company.

On Monday, workers at cafés in Santa Cruz on Pacific Avenue and Fair Avenue, and in San Francisco, notified their managers that they intend to unionize. Employees said they deliberately timed their unionization announcement for Labor Day, a federal holiday honoring the American labor movement. By attempting to form a union, employees at these coffeehouses are seeking to improve working conditions, increase wages and hours, and to gain more respect from the leaders at the company. 

Sasha Pavy, 24, is a shift lead — a type of manager — at the Pacific Avenue location, and has worked for Verve for almost three years. She said she’s seen working conditions worsen over that time through low wages and staffing issues. Part-time workers who seek full-time hours are frequently denied, or given full-time hours inconsistently — they might be scheduled for 30 hours for a few weeks before dropping back down to part-time, she said.

“People don’t feel like their voices are heard, or that their questions are being answered. It makes us feel disrespected at work,” said Pavy. Around 50 to 60 people work across the three locations seeking to unionize, and are holding a launch rally on Friday at 11 a.m. at Verve’s location on Bronson Street in Seabright, which serves as its headquarters and roastery. 

Sam Creighton, a 27-year-old barista at the Pacific Avenue café, said coffeehouse worker wages don’t account for the high cost of living in Santa Cruz County, listed as the least affordable rental market in the nation. Creighton’s hourly wage is $17.50, and Pavy’s is $19.20. That amount isn’t a liveable wage for the area, they said, and doesn’t match Verve’s expectations for quality of customer service and barista skills.

“Verve puts a lot of time and effort into training us, which is fantastic. It’s more thorough training than I’ve gotten on many jobs. The expectation for the quality of work, not just the coffee itself, but the experience that people are getting when they come in — the cleanliness, the organization, the vibe, the customer service — is all an expected part of the position. And I get paid less than I did working back-of-house at a bakery,” said Creighton. 

Tips, a crucial part of any industry worker’s income, have gone down as beverage prices in the cafés have increased, said Pavy and Creighton. Staff try to respect the company and advocate for the quality of Verve’s coffee, but explaining to curious customers why the prices are high and why tipping is still important doesn’t sit well with them while wages have remained low. 

Verve also issues inconsistent raises, they said. Employees receive different amounts of pay increases at random intervals, rather than on a set schedule. Employees are told that the wages are based on merit, Creighton said. 

Both employees said they enjoy their job, coworkers and coffee products, made with coffee and matcha that are ethically and fairly sourced, and want to continue to help the company grow. 

In an emailed statement, a Verve Coffee Roasters spokesperson wrote: “We love our team, and we will always have their back. While we do not believe a third-party organization is needed to serve the best interest of our team, we will respect the outcome regardless. Our people and our culture are the center-point of who we are and that will never change.”

Since it was founded in Santa Cruz in 2007, Verve has become a major brand in artisanal coffee, with 19 cafés across California and Tokyo, online whole-bean sales, a line of ready-to-drink coffees available at major grocers nationwide and a corporate partnership with Capital One. As a private company, Verve doesn’t publicly disclose its revenues, a company spokesperson told Lookout in an email.

Creighton and Pavy believe in the fair-trade coffee sourcing and craft roasting techniques that Verve was founded on and would like to see that care extended to the company’s workers. “I respect the buying practices of the company as a whole, and they need to extend those practices to us as employees and treat us well,” said Creighton. 

Tensions between Verve and its employees emerged earlier this summer. In August, Verve implemented a 5% service fee at all of its coffeeshops in California. A sign by the register said that the surcharge went to health benefits for full-time staff, but café workers said, as part-time workers, they did not receive health care. 

Verve is also under investigation in San Francisco for violating the city’s Health Care Security Ordinance, Angela Yip, spokesperson for the city’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement, confirmed to Lookout. The ordinance requires area employers with at least 20 workers to show they spend a minimum amount on health care for employees who work at least eight hours a week.

Verve disputes the accusation that the service fee isn’t going toward health benefits for baristas. In an email to Lookout, a company spokesperson said that more than 75% of Verve retail staff are eligible to receive health benefits, and it considers anyone who works 30 hours or more full-time. The company declined to say how many employees actually receive health care benefits, citing “confidentiality regarding those figures as they involve private employee information.” It added that new hires learn about the benefits during orientation and eligible employees get “personalized enrollment invites, complemented by follow-up emails to prevent information loss.”

That doesn’t match Pavy’s experience working at the downtown café location for the past three years. “I have never been approached about any health benefits that I might be able to receive, and I do not know any coworkers who have received health benefits from them,” she said. 

According to filings with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Verve employed 267 workers in 2024, with 318,000 total hours scheduled. That works out to about 1,191 hours annually per worker, or about 23 hours a week on average.

Verve’s unionization drive follows in the footsteps of other area coffee chains who have successfully unionized or are currently seeking to do so. In 2022, two Starbucks locations in Santa Cruz were some of the first in the state to vote to unionize. In July, a Starbucks in Soquel became the sixth in the county to form a union in the past three years. Workers at Blue Bottle Coffee, which is owned by Nestlé and has 70 locations across the country, announced in June they are seeking to form unions at four East Bay locations. In March, Highwire Coffee voluntarily recognized unions representing baristas and roasters at eight locations in the Bay Area. 

Over the past six months, Verve employees have worked with United Food and Commercial Workers. The labor union also represented Highwire, along with Santa Cruz-area workers at REI Santa Cruz who successfully unionized last year, plus Camouflage, an adult retail store with two locations, as well as grocery workers at Safeway and employees at CVS. 

The unionization process is fairly simple, said Jim Araby, the director of strategic campaigns at UFCW, who has helped Verve workers through the legal framework. Employees at Verve formed an organizing committee, and at least 80% of the workers at the three cafés signed union authorization cards that will be filed with the National Labor Relations Board, far exceeding the necessary 30%. 

On Monday, the workers presented a letter with their intent to unionize and their demands to their employer, via their managers at their respective cafés. 

At this point, Verve can either voluntarily recognize the union, or ask to hold an election, which has to be held within 45 days. If the majority of the workers vote in favor of the union, it’s officially recognized and employees can begin to negotiate for better wages and working conditions. 

Araby said the union organizers hope that Verve will recognize the union without an election, and skip straight to negotiations. “It’s a much simpler process, and there’s precedent for this,” he said. Earlier this year, the owner of Highwire Coffee chose to recognize the union rather than hold an election because it was clear that the majority of workers wanted the union. “Instead of spending time and resources on fighting the union, the employer decided it was easier to recognize the union and get into bargaining,” said Araby. 

The entire process can take anywhere from a few weeks to a year, depending on scheduling and negotiations. 

Ultimately, workers will gain more stability through uniform policies regarding staffing, availability of full-time hours, wages and raise schedules, and opportunities for movement with the company, said Araby. That kind of long-term investment is a benefit to owners, too. “If the workers are happy, there’s better customer service because people feel more secure in their job,” he said. 

Creighton and Pavy said they and their fellow workers are hoping to inspire other cafés in Santa Cruz County and throughout the state to consider unionizing, and are currently in the early stages of discussing the process with baristas at the Seabright and 41st Avenue locations. 

“This is something for all of us,” said Creighton. “We really want [other Verve employees] to reach out to us and to get excited about the prospect of working for something better. We think that the company could be great in terms of how it manages this and how it manages its employees, and we’re excited to be a part of the process to make that a reality.”

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FOR THE RECORD: This story was updated with a statement from Verve.

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