Workers at Brunswick Coffee Shop Form a Union Citing Health & Safety Concerns

A majority of the staff at the Little Dog Coffee Shop in Brunswick announced last week that they are forming a union with Workers United following a change in ownership in July. The new owner, Larry Flaherty, also owns Metropolitan Coffee House, a chain of cafes located in Maine and New Hampshire. In a letter dated Sept. 17th, the workers asked Flaherty to voluntarily recognize their union, but they say they haven’t heard a word from him since, even though he did provide a response to the Bowdoin Orient questioning why the workers needed a union.

The Little Dog employees wrote that they want to form a union to have a stronger voice to address changes in their working conditions and high staff turnover rates as well as a lack of proper training, communication, transparency and respect toward long-term employees.

“Little Dog Coffee Shop has been the beating heart of Brunswick, Maine for 17 years,” members of Little Dog Workers United wrote in the letter posted to the union’s Instagram.“We are organizing a union to preserve what Little Dog is best known for. The majority of the store has come to this decision. Our customers and community respect us and our establishment, the ownership needs to do the same.”

The workers say food safety concerns were the final straw in their decision to start a union. According to the employees, they were forced to work on Sept. 14th and 15th without hot water because the owner refused to let them close early until the problem was fixed. Federal law requires water be at least 100 degrees Fahrenheit at restaurants for cleaning and hand washing purposes.

When the hot water still wasn’t working on Sept. 16th, Little Dog employees say they weren’t comfortable continuing to serve food, so they walked out and put a sign on the door reading “Closed for walkout/hot water maintenance.” The owner reportedly saw the sign and ripped off the “walkout” part. 

The following day on Sept. 17, the Little Dog workers say the owner still required them to work without running hot water and instead Flaherty brought water in from one of his coffee shops in Freeport and had employees from another coffee shop he owned in North Conway, New Hampshire come in and boil water all day at the Brunswick shop. According to the union, one of the Little Dog employees’ hands was burned from the boiling water they were using, but there was no first aid kit at the shop so the employee had to wait until the end of their shift to buy bandages and first aid cream. 

That same day, on Sept. 17, the workers presented Flaherty with a letter asking for union recognition. He reportedly told them he would have an answer by Monday, Sept. 19, but hasn’t yet responded. The store was finally closed temporarily on Sept. 18 in order to fix the hot water issue.

“We have some interesting weeks and months ahead of us — before our official union election and bargaining begins,” the union wrote. “We already know we have our workers’ support but now we need YOURS.”

In the meantime, the Little Dog workers are urging supporters to follow their Instagram page, comment and use the hashtag #littledogunion to show support. They will continue to post updates there.