Fairgrounds Coffee Workers Win Union
By a four-to-one vote, downtown coffee shop workers choose to join union.
Fairgrounds Coffee. Photo taken Dec. 6 by Graham Kilmer.
Corporate representatives of Fairgrounds Coffee travelled north from Chicago Friday morning to observe a union ballot count that went overwhelmingly against them.
Workers from the cafe at 916 E. State St. approved their union on a four-to-one vote, according to Peter Rickman president of the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Organization, which helped the workers organize and will act as their bargaining representative.
“Only through a union contract can the workers on whose labor this industry is built secure a living wage, rights on the job, fair and decent hours, a seat at the table on workplace policies, and accountability for their employers,” Rickman said in a statement. “Despite employer opposition and NLRB processes that can make unionizing difficult, Fairgrounds workers showed us all how hospitality workers can win by sticking together to win their union.”
Fairgrounds Coffee is owned by Infuse Hospitality, a Chicago-based corporate food and hospitality management company. A representative of Infuse Hospitality could not reached for comment as of publication.
The company filed for an NLRB election in December after the cafe workers demanded recognition of their union. Under a new legal framework established by an NLRB decision in 2023, when a majority of workers demand recognition employers have 14 days to recognize the union or petition for an NLRB election. Under this framework, petitioning for an election is viewed as refusing to recognize a union voluntarily.
The election was conducted by mail-in ballots, which, as it played out, did not allow for all of the workers in the small bargaining unit to cast a vote. However, the pro-union vote still represented a majority of all the workers. The new union’s next step is to bargain a contract with their employer.
“Unionizing uplifts the voices and needs of workers at Fairgrounds Coffee and Tea,” said Abi Bean, a Fairgrounds barista with an appropriate name, in a statement. “We have built a wonderful community here and unionizing provides the means to preserve that environment for future employees, too.”
The cafe opened on 2019 in the first floor of the Vantage on the Park apartment building, a redeveloped hotel.
With their successful union campaign, the small bargaining unit at Fairgrounds joins the ranks of other workers in Milwaukee represented by MASH, which includes hospitality workers at the Fiserv Forum and front-of-house workers at Pabst Theater Group. The workers are also a part of a growing nationwide organizing movement among coffee shop and coffee industry employees.
Starbucks employees have unionized a handful of locations in the Milwaukee area with Starbucks Workers United, which is organizing Starbucks stores across the nation.
Workers at Colectivo Coffee organized with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and won a contested union election in 2022, despite more than a year of opposition from the coffee company. Colectivo staff in Wisconsin and Illinois are now organized and working under a single contract.
The president of Fairgrounds Coffee, Tom McLaughlin, served in executive roles at Colectivo, including chief operating office, from 2021 to 2024.
“This win isn’t just about us – it’s about setting an example that change is possible when workers come together for a common purpose,” said Fairgrounds barista Leonela Alejandro.
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