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By: Frederick Reiber
BOSTON, MA—Amid the bustle of Thanksgiving weekend–long lines, overloaded suitcases, and the familiar scramble for caffeine, Blue Bottle baristas staged their first strike. With a union-busting rap sheet almost as big as its balance sheet, workers faced down the chain’s corporate anti-union majority stakeholder during one of the company’s busiest weeks of the year.
As the holidays march towards us, workers picketed and protested to remind customers and corporate leadership that behind the churn of holiday coffee are workers whose demands can no longer be ignored.
The Blue Bottle Independent Union
In May 2024, workers across six Boston Blue Bottle locations voted to unionize, forming the Blue Bottle Independent Union (BBIU). Blue Bottle, once a small San Francisco coffee shop, has become a staple of “third-wave” specialty coffee, now boasting more than 90 locations across the United States, Japan, and Hong Kong. Nestlé purchased a majority stake in 2017, positioning the chain as a glossy, craft-focused brand operating on a tech-startup-like growth model. Nestle is notorious for egregious human rights violations, including child labor, slave labor, and preventing water access to impoverished countries and Tribal nations, among other transgressions.
For workers, unionization was a necessary response to an ever-widening gap between corporate profits and barista wages. Nestlé reported more than $5 billion in net profit in the first half of 2025 alone, even as many employees said they struggle with living costs. Organizers also noted that this tension mirrors broader trends across the industry and city, recognizing the current ongoing Starbucks Workers United Strike and the adding of three East Bay cafés to the union in 2025.
Workers have additionally emphasized the importance of safe, non-invasive working conditions. Shortly after employees announced their union campaign, Nestlé attempted to install new surveillance cameras across stores—raising concerns about anti-union retaliation and constant monitoring. Despite the union’s attempts to negotiate meaningful data rights, the company declared an impasse.
That provided legal cover to move forward with the installations.
A First Strike Against Blue Bottle
Recognizing the need to increase pressure at the bargaining table and build worker power, the union voted to strike during Thanksgiving week, when foot traffic surges and the company launches its Black Friday sale on coffee beans. Organizers said the goal was to escalate at a moment when a work stoppage would be impossible for management to ignore. “In the lead-up to the decision to strike, we know that Black Friday and the week around Thanksgiving is one of the times in the year where Blue Bottle makes a lot of their money,” said barista-organizer Abby Sadow.
Union organizers emphasized that their independence played a central role in how they arrived at that decision. “One of the biggest things about being independent is that we’re able to be fully autonomous and fully democratic,” said one union leader, describing their constitution and bylaws governing strikes.
We get to set all of the dates, we get to set all of the standards… we need to make sure everybody can come to a consensus.
The process required giving baristas ample time to vote and ensuring broad agreement—reflected in the overwhelming 92 percent strike-authorization vote, demonstrating a clear collective mandate to walk out.
Workers began their strike on Wednesday, November 26, urging baristas to withhold their labor and picket outside of the shop. And despite legal challenges over where they could picket, organizers cited strong turnout across the four day strike. Reports from the union’s social media highlighted closures across the city, with only one location, Blue Bottle’s Prudential Center cafe, managing to stay open through manager scabbing. At the union’s East Bay locations, workers were also successful, shutting down all three stores during the strike.
The strike allowed BBIU to send a message in the language that shareholders in Wall Street and Davos will understand: workers are organized, and can decimate your earnings until you give them their fair share.
Striking To Win and To Organize
Workers also described the strike not merely as a last-ditch tactic, but as a vital organizing tool in its own right.
As current Blue Bottle Independent Union president Alex Pyne put it, the union’s understanding of strikes differs from that of some larger, more traditional labor organizations. “When we launched our union last year, we felt very strongly about doing a walkout for recognition, which I know from conversations with a lot of people that a larger union would not have allowed us to do,” the organizer said. Many unions, they noted, view strikes primarily as a final step to push a contract over the finish line, whereas their independent union sees collective refusal as the historical force that brings employers to the table in the first place. That perspective shapes the union’s approach to workplace power, allowing them to fight the boss more directly. As Pyne argued:
There’s […] an understanding that strikes are a form of protest or refusal of a regime of work in order to challenge the actual nature of the workplace and who owns it.
This approach, where strikes are used not just as a tool for bargaining but also for organizing, affected their picket line strategy. Organizers stressed the importance of getting people to talk to each other, to share and listen to the personal stories of how their company is hurting them. As one workplace leader noted:
A lot of our baristas are on government assistance with EBT and SNAP… so giving them a solution to pressure the company, I think, has been really major and really influential.
Challenges in Striking as an Independent Union
Union leaders were also candid about the challenges of being an independent union. Unlike large, multinational unions, BBIU does not have major financial reserves to rely on during work stoppages. To sustain the strike, organizers raised roughly $18,000 in community donations—enough to ensure that every striking barista received their full wages for the duration of the walkout.
That community support extended beyond funding. Organizers coordinated with the Boston DSA Labor Working Group and connected with local Starbucks Workers United partners, building broader solidarity across the coffee industry at a critical moment when multiple chains were engaged in parallel fights for better working conditions.
Even as public support grew, workers said the company continued to retaliate, reporting the firing of three union leaders in what organizers described as a clear attempt to intimidate the workforce and discourage future direct action. These egregious maneuvers are not uncommon against workers standing up to the boss, but are even less surprising when facing union-busting conglomerates like Nestle, making this worker action still more impressive.
With bargaining set to resume in January, workers say the strike has only sharpened their resolve to win a contract that reflects the realities of living in Boston. Workers are now better positioned to push for a living wage, predictable scheduling, a more transparent promotions processes, and to push back on workplace surveillance. Union estimates put the financial cost to Nestlé at over $100,000, a strong signal that worker voice and power can not be ignored. Nestlé also has begun exploring a potential sale of the coffee chain.
For workers, though, the strike has already demonstrated their collective power. As negotiations continue, they’re ready to translate momentum into concrete, lasting gains.
Frederick Reiber is a contributing writer to Working Mass.
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