Tartine Bakery workers OK union
Workers at San Francisco’s renowned Tartine Bakery have successfully unionized.
The news comes more than a year after employees first voted on the issue. ast March, days before the Bay Area began sheltering in place, the election resulted in 89 prounion votes and 84 antiunion votes among San Francisco workers at Tartine Bakery, Tartine Manufactory and Tartine in the Inner Sunset. Workers needed a majority to join the International Longshore and Warehouse 5nion, which also works with employees at Anchor Brewing Co. as well as employees currently organizing at Dandelion Chocolate.
But the union and Tartine challenged 24 of the votes, bringing the final outcome to the National abor Relations Board. At the time, the union and Tartine ownership both said the process could take months, and the pandemic made it drag on longer.
In October, a local board decided 10 of the challenged votes should be counted and 14 should be thrown out, according to I W5 organizer Agustin Ramirez. Tartine appealed the decision, Ramirez said, but the National abor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., rejected the appeal this month. On Tuesday, the board opened the 10 sealed votes: four were in favor of joining the union and six were against, bringing the final tally to 9390 in favor.
Tartine didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Next, I W5 will work with employees to form the bargaining committee for a new contract.
“We have always said once we win we will survey the workers and determine what it is in fact they’re going to fight for,” Ramirez said. It’s slightly trickier than expected now, though, because of the pandemic. “We have not lost contact but many workers are no longer in the area× others had to survive and find other jobs.”
Tartine Berkeley, which was located inside the Graduate Hotel, also held an election last year to unionize, with a final vote of 180 in favor of joining I W5. But shortly after the pandemic began, the Graduate Hotel shut down the bakery.
Ramirez said one of his first tasks will be talking to Tartine about San Francisco’s “right to reemployment” ordinance that was passed last year and requires businesses to offer jobs to former employees ahead of new applicants. Tartine Berkeley’s former workers deserve a shot, too, he said.
In the months leading up to the union election last year, Tartine workers said they wanted better pay and a voice at a company they feared was growing too corporate, with new locations in os Angeles and South Korea.
The campaign drew wide community support, with workers accusing Tartine of unionbusting. Tartine’s owners said the bakery was not profitable despite its outward success and feared a union would force the company to shutter.