Two Ultimo coffee shops withdraw from barista union

Two of four Ultimo coffee shops are no longer unionized this week, after workers at the Germantown and Graduate Hospital cafes filed petitions to vote on decertification. Before any votes took place, the Philadelphia Joint Board Workers United filed respective disclaimers of interest, effectively ending union representation at both shops.

Workers at Ultimo’s Rittenhouse and South Philadelphia stores remain unionized. The split in the Ultimo union comes weeks after fellow Local 80-represented unions at Elixr and ReAnimator approved respective first contracts.

Ultimo workers first moved to unionize in September 2022, and the four shops — each treated individually — showed signs of split sentiments from the beginning. Owners Aaron and Elizabeth Ultimo voluntarily recognized unions at the Center City and South Philly locations, while the Grad Hospital and Germantown employees went on to vote on unionization in November 2022. Both stores, with seven and eight employees at the time, respectively, voted to unionize 4-2.

Ultimo workers have been in contract negotiations for about a year, but unionized employees can file a request to decertify one year after certification if no contract has been reached. Ultimo Germantown employee Sam Tarasenko, a coffee quality manager who’s been at the cafe for roughly three years, moved to do so in December 2023 in a petition filed with assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

In an interview Friday, Tarasenko said he was open-minded to the idea of unionization when Ultimo co-workers first pitched him on it in 2022, but he was subsequently put off by their response.

“When I was first interviewed by somebody ... who was one of the people going to employee’s houses, I had an hour-long conversation with them, and I said to them, ‘Help me sympathize with you. Give me tangible grievances, give me a resolution, because I want to support you,’” Tarasenko recalled. “And they said to me, ‘You’re either with us or against us.’ I said to them, ‘That is a false binary. ... Just because I might disagree with the way you’re going about this does not mean I’m going against the workers.’

“As much as I wanted a dialogue, I was shut down,” said Tarasenko, whose mom is a unionized postal worker.

Kate Lord, a barista at Ultimo Rittenhouse and co-lead negotiator on the bargaining committee, shared a statement with The Inquirer on behalf of the Ultimo union. “It’s certainly unfortunate and disappointing to see Ultimo associated with the National Right to Work Foundation, but as a democratic and worker-led union it’s our responsibility to respond to what workers at Ultimo are saying they want. Workers at Graduate Hospital and Germantown have expressed they don’t want to be included in this first contract, and out of respect for their wishes we have walked away from those two bargaining units. We are excited to continue working with Aaron and Elizabeth to settle contracts for the workers at the remaining two units in the near future.”

Representatives from Local 80 did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The employees made a decision. We respected their wishes when they wanted a union. We respect their wishes now that they don’t. Most importantly, we appreciate their trust, their hard work and the value that they add to our company,” the Ultimos said in a statement.

Tarasenko said he did not mention his intent to file a decertification petition to the owners or any managers. When approaching his fellow Germantown colleagues for signatures, he asked them one question, he said: “With the current tentative agreements that we have, is it worth the union dues to you?” (He estimated the union dues — which are collected only after a contract has been ratified by workers — would be “about $44 a month” based on the contracts signed at Elixr and ReAnimator cafes.)

Tarasenko said about half of the staff in Germantown, which has grown to 10, had turned over in the past year. Eight employees total signed the petition to decertify.

At Ultimo’s Graduate Hospital location, all but one employee signed the petition, filed earlier this week by an employee who was also assisted by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

This is the second independent coffee shop union to decertify in Philadelphia. Employees at two Good Karma Cafe locations voted to decertify their union last September.