A galvanizing moment was when five employees walked out of Slate Coffee Roasters<\/a> in Seattle on June 22, 2019, citing, among other things, missing wages and a toxic work environment. They regrouped at a nearby caf\u00e9 and launched the Instagram account @coffeeatlarge<\/a> (CAL). One of the founders, Felix Tran, remembers saying, \u201c\u2018If the Instagram page got maybe<\/em> 100 followers, I\u2019ll commit to growing the organization.\u2019 Rather, we received 5k followers within a day!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n CAL<\/a> was overwhelmed with support and solidarity, and many followers shared stories of workplace injustices similar to their own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur following in social media is only a reflection of how prolific the problems in this industry are,\u201d says CAL\u2019s Rachel Hopke. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 2019 may have been the year barista activism broke major headlines, but it certainly didn\u2019t just appear overnight. Barista-led activism happens when baristas (or former baristas, roasters, or other coffee workers) raise awareness, organize, fundraise, or have an action or demonstration on behalf of worker issues. Worker-activists also host classes, network, or even form nonprofits or unions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Q grader, writer, educator, and entrepreneur Motoyoshi says, \u201cThis movement has been a long time coming, and it built on itself through the individual and collective efforts of many people all paving the way for each other through interrelated works.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The groundwork for recent events can be traced back to a few years ago. In 2016 and 2017, coffee professional Michelle Johnson and coffee writer Ashley Rodriguez started writing about race and gender in the coffee industry. Johnson\u2019s blog, The Chocolate Barista<\/a>, and event series, Black Coffee, facilitate dialogue around race and draw on her own experiences as a Black woman in specialty coffee. In 2017, Rodriguez and Jasper Wilde founded Boss Barista<\/a>, an award-winning intersectional feminist podcast. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor the first time, the coffee community began to admit that we have problems, that our spaces are unsafe for many people. Previously these conversations were extremely taboo in the industry.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Motoyoshi notes that Johnson\u2019s and Rodriguez\u2019s work \u201cradically shifted the coffee landscape in an extremely short time, creating conversations about identity, power, and marginalization. For the first time, the coffee community began to admit that we have problems, that our spaces are unsafe for many people. Previously these conversations were extremely taboo in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of those taboo topics was speaking out against workplace harassment, a subject tackled by #coffeetoo. Having worked in coffee for more than 14 years, Molly Flynn laid the groundwork for the grassroots organization #coffeetoo<\/a> on October 14, 2017, \u201cthe day before the #MeToo movement shifted from Tarana Burke\u2019s much-needed usage of the hashtag to the present-day post-Weinstein usage of it,\u201d she notes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n #coffeetoo focused on three questions: What are our rights as employees? What can we do if our rights have been violated? How can we take care of ourselves if we\u2019ve been put through an unwanted situation? They provided answers to those questions through their booklet, A Pocket Guide To Your Rights<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor about a year or so we printed copies of these for free and shipped them all over the United States\u2014and even the world!\u201d says Flynn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The booklet has been widely distributed and is digitally available for free at CoffeeTooProject.com<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A Boss Barista podcast with Molly Flynn about #coffeetoo partly inspired Demelza Jones\u2019 SAME CUP<\/a> organization in Australia, which launched in the fall of 2018. SAME CUP<\/a> provides education and networking opportunities to women, queer people, and other minorities in Australia\u2019s specialty coffee scene, and has enabled more women to participate in coffee competitions, raised funds for women in Rwanda, and provided coffee outreach to rural communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Taking a stand against workplace harassment, former employees of Bay Area\u2019s Four Barrel Coffee, including Motoyoshi, filed a lawsuit in January 2018 against the company for sexual assault and harassment. The lawsuit was settled, with founder Jeremy Tooker resigning, and remaining partners promising to divest from the company and turn it into an employee-owned business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[The lawsuit] helped many baristas in similar situations identify that they too could band together and stand up against workplace injustices,\u201d says Motoyoshi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other groups, like DMV Coffee<\/a>, have affected positive change on coffee culture. Though not a new organization, DMV serves coffee workers in the greater D.C. area, Southern Maryland, and Northern Virginia. They just passed their 11th year hosting the nation\u2019s longest-running Thursday Night Throwdowns (TNTs). DMV also puts together networking events like happy hours and multi-roaster cuppings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coffee professional Adam JacksonBey, who has been involved with DMV for over five years, credits their code of conduct as one tool that makes events welcome to everyone. The code ensures DMV events will be free of harassment, including unwanted verbal comments relating to race, gender, body size, and sexual orientation, and unwanted sexual attention. DMV\u2019s leadership, which has grown from five to seven board members, centers non-white and other coffee workers from marginalized identities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A newer organization, the Kore Directive<\/a>, launched in November 2018. Founded by Sierra Burgess-Yeo, Kore hosts panels, workshops, networking events, and other happenings designed to empower women in London\u2019s coffee community. Burgess-Yeo spent much of her barista career frustrated by the inaccessibility of furthering her coffee education and consistently seeing positions of power given to men, which no one else seemed to question. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is literally a non-issue and that\u2019s the dangerous bit,\u201d she tells Fresh Cup<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The emergence of two coffee worker unions also made big strides for barista activism: Ithaca-based Gimme! Coffee\u2019s barista union<\/a> and the Washtenaw Area Coffee Workers\u2019 Association<\/a> (WACWA) both formed in 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor every visible group like ours that formally organizes and takes public action, there are probably nine or ten that are out there meeting privately at the moment, planning and building solidarity one barista at a time in the shops where they work,\u201d says Alec Hershman, WACWA\u2019s lead organizer. \u201cI think there\u2019s a groundswell owing to the systematicity of the problems (low wages, harassment, discrimination) that baristas across the world face on a daily basis, and the accelerating degree to which we baristas are professionalizing ourselves and talking about the skill involved in the labor we perform.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year not only saw the continuation of labor organizing and group and individual activism, but also caf\u00e9 walkouts and protests. Early in the year, current and former employees of Portland\u2019s Ristretto Roasters, including Camila Coddou, signed an open letter in protest of their employer\u2019s YouTube video channel<\/a> questioning victims of rape and challenging other prominent #MeToo figureheads. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Coddou went on to launch Barista Behind the Bar, traveling around the country in a converted Sprinter van interviewing baristas. She now speaks about equitable caf\u00e9 practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Motoyoshi hosted events \u201cChanging Structures\u201d and \u201cSubjective Objectivity.\u201d The former was a panel discussion with industry professionals who are challenging conventions in the coffee world, while \u201cSubjective Objectivity\u201d was \u201cequal parts sensory training and social power dynamics,\u201d explains Motoyoshi. \u201cMany people of color grow up eating foods specific to our cultures, and our sense memory banks are informed by that. But in majority white coffee settings, our tasting notes sometimes fall outside of what others recognize and end up ignored or invalidated.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n After the Slate Coffee Roasters walkout, CAL had three events, including \u201cGet To Know Coffee At Large,\u201d and co-facilitating the \u201cBadass Barista Throwdown,\u201d with proceeds going to Glitter Cat Barista Bootcamps. They also endorsed a second CAL chapter in Cincinnati, @bitchy.baristas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe want to elevate and support anyone standing up to discrimination or unfair treatment in their locale,\u201d says Hopke. \u201cThat usually looks like an individual or group keeping in touch via email, we repost their initiatives, or sending a small group who\u2019s experiencing a bad work culture steps to organize, or becoming a more formal \u2018chapter of CAL\u2019 if they desire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On October 2, former employees and community members protested at Seattle\u2019s iconic Caffe Vita<\/a>. The demonstration was in response to the firing of three employees for allegedly giving day-old pastries to the homeless; at least seven other workers quit in solidarity. The protest included distributing hundreds of flyers that decried Vita\u2019s firings, which were without warning, disciplinary action, or constructive dialogue, and demanded accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n @stl.dial.in<\/a> is another activist-oriented Instagram profile, this time for the St. Louis coffee community to address issues in the workplace. To quote a caption from their first Instagram post: \u201cOur desire is not to tear down organizations that people rely on for income and community. Rather it is to systematically dismantle the culture of misogyny, homophobia, sexism, racism, xenophobia and disparities that finds its way into the industry all too often.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Inspired by museum employees who started similar wage surveys in May, a Philadelphia-based barista started a local wage survey, collecting data about wages and benefits for coffee workers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Wage transparency surveys, publicly shared via Google Docs, cropped up in barista communities nationwide in October. Inspired by museum employees who started similar wage surveys in May, a Philadelphia-based barista started a local wage survey<\/a>, collecting data about wages and benefits for coffee workers. Other cities soon followed suit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/freshcup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/CoffeeATLarge-815x1024.jpg\")
A History of Recent Barista Activism<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nLast Year\u2019s Activism <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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