CHS reported last week on the vote by workers at Glo’s Diner to decertify its union representation and go it alone with management over issues of scheduling, wages, and workplace safety.
“We got union busted plain and simple,” longtime Glo’s employee, cook, and labor organizer Sean Case told CHS in an interview over the weekend following our first report on the vote.
Case said he has given his two-week notice over the decision.
CHS spoke to workers part of the 12 to 11 vote to end the representation who said, for them, their vote against certification was not an argument against the value of unions and worker rights but a specific decision based on their experiences working at Glo’s and frustration with the priorities of Restaurant Workers United.
In a statement, Glo’s owners Julie Reisman and Steve Frias said the change will help the business stabilize after a challenging start.
Workers part of organizing the union as the diner reopened this summer in its new location above Capitol Hill Station were not available to discuss the decertification vote with one telling CHS they were too shocked about the outcome to immediately comment. Representatives for tiny Restaurant Workers United — active in only a few workplaces across the country — also opted not to comment.
CHS first spoke with Case in April as it was announced that Glo’s management would voluntarily recognize the union amid organization efforts leading up to the diner’s planned reopening after its move to Broadway. “There are ideas about how our workplace can improve. We believed we were the people to decide that,” Case said at the time.
In the wake of the vote, Case said he still believes Glo’s workers offered the best path forward for the diner where ownership will now face sorting out plans around staffing, scheduling, and safety on their own.
“They can staff up,” Case said. “They’ve been working themselves too much to manage the business. They (Reisman and Frias) work too hard and that is part of the problem.”
As for the vote, Case calls it unfair. The union busting tactics at Glo’s, he says, were not at the scale of things seen at companies like Starbucks where the coffee giant has been accused of violation of labor laws over actions intended to stop, slow, or roll back unionization like making “coercive statements” and threats of shutdown or relocation.
Instead, Case described what he called smaller efforts to “demonize the union” that “seeded fear and mistrust” and focused on what he says was a small core of three to four employees “to counter organize” against the union efforts. Case said the firing of an employee who supported unionization efforts also helped tip the decertification balance.
None of the employees CHS talked with who joined the decertification vote said they believed they were pressured by Glo’s ownership over the decision and one said he felt like ownership “bent over backwards” to work with those interested in forging a union-backed contract.
Owner Reisman described a hands-off approach. “We were involved with neither the petition process nor the vote,” she told CHS. “Both of those aspects of where we land today were in the hands of the staff.”
Reisman said she also wanted to be clear. While the change to decertify will help Glo’s move forward and stabilize the business by putting uncertainty around the union behind it, she does not feel that unionization alone was holding the relocated diner back.
“I can tell you as owners it’s been a stressful time,” she said. “Unionization has been one of the stressors, but not the only.”
“Opening a new restaurant is difficult and takes time,” she said. “We have things we still want to implement and we’re looking forward to moving on to the next phases.”
One of those elements Reisman and Frias said will be a community service program that has been on hold and had previously been known for providing free meals to those in need.
Case said that ownership pointing at the community service effort as something that can move forward after the vote is particularly frustrating as it was originally created and fostered by the people now feeling they can’t move forward with Glo’s.
UPDATE: Glo’s ownership has responded to criticism of its inclusion of the program in its statements on the decertification vote. “We want to be clear that the Union is in no way responsible for the fact that our community service efforts have yet to begin,” an update sent to CHS reads. “We apologize to staff members who supported the union and were deeply hurt by that insinuation, and it is our desire to right that wrong. In our original statement we were pointing to something we are looking forward to, as is the community. We want to assure the community that our commitment to giving back is still strong and in no way has been the responsibility of the union to execute.”
The cook expects more to follow his example and leave. He says he has some worries a new employer might be concerned about the unionization push. “I’m sure I can get a decent restaurant job,” Case said. “People see seven years of experience at a notable Seattle restaurant.”
As for Glo’s and the rest of the people working there, Case said he wishes them the best.
“I’m not going to call for a boycott. In the end of the day, I’m interested to see if Julie and Steve make any changes,” Case said. “I like and trust almost everybody — I love a lot of them.”
Customers also have decisions to make. Case said he has heard from at least two longtime regulars who say they are never coming back.
“I wish (Glo’s) had a little more long-term thinking about how this looks,” Case said.
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hope everything works out, much love
It’s beginning to look like owner’s eyes were bigger than their (undercapitalized) stomachs.
It’s a shame what they did to the Hill’s best diner.
The entitlement of this Sean Case person is pretty shocking. “They can staff up,” Case said. “They’ve been working themselves too much to manage the business. They (Reisman and Frias) work too hard and that is part of the problem.” Fuck off, kiddo. If you had any idea how restaurants work, you wouldn’t dare make this kind of a statement. Also, calling this “union busting” sounds like a stretch, and borders on libel, given the amount of weight it carries in this town. The idea of needing a union to resolve issues at a restaurant as small as Glo’s is ridiculous from the start anyway. If more than half the staff of my restaurant decided to make a demand with a threat of a walk out, it would cripple my business. I would be listening. A union seems more like it’s there to get press attention than for the sake of solving an issue. Believe you me, Sean Case has guaranteed notoriety amongst hiring managers.
Wow, a worker states that a culture-driven expectation of workers giving extra effort (beyond compensation) is not a good work environment, and your response is “fuck off, kiddo” – that certainly conveys the validity and nuance of your perspective.
How can an employee tell an owner they are micromanaging themselves out of employees? Did they need an arbitrator instead of a union?
Totally agree.
Also, lmao about hiring managers noteriety, like theyll remember between bumps of coke and sexually harassing workers, and however many drinks deep they are into a service while trying to fill a hole they created.
This is a wildly offensive sweeping generalization of the restaurant community at large. This isn’t some Anthony Bourdain NY hard driving night shift kitchen. This is quite literally a mom and pop/woman/queer owned small business. Those who know Steve and Julie, including the 11 who voted in favor of the union, would tell you that while not infallible or perfect, they are not charicatures or stereotyipical f***head owners with substance problems. And addicts are people too. Do better.
Hit dog hollers!
Is Sean reapplying to Glo’s?
Also, thats lived experience and why I spent 2 years back of house doing prep and dishwashing before leaping towards the first office job that would have me – more professionalism on the job.
One persons lived experience does not equate to a global truth.
Uh huh, which is why everyone besides restaurant managers have tons of accolades for restaurant managers that theyre always mentioning unprompted. I actually have to ask my bartemder friends to stop gassing up how good their managers are with effusive praises because thats all they ever talk about these days.
It is truly shocking the amount of absolutely hateful nonsense you spew on here. You are a simple troll with nothing to contribute. At times I read your posts and I imagine that the only reason your bullshit makes it through to the comments is that you must write this blog. I’ve had far less hateful comments get censored here.
Sean has been working alongside the owners for 7 years. He knows how Glo’s works. As for getting another restaurant job after the union effort, I left Glo’s several months ago after being part of the union and found work without issue. Good cooks are in demand and everyone who cooks at Glo’s is a good cook.
I don’t know a restaurant owner that shares everything with their employees. I know quite a few. I own one myself. Yes, good cooks are in huge demand, which is why a union makes exactly no sense. You get treated really well in this town to cook these days. Culture, pay, often benefits … you don’t even need experience at my place, we’ll train you up.
I said “fuck off, kiddo” because it’s the mirror response to someone telling the media that you work too hard. THAT’S THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS. It’s small business in general. A majority of Seattle thinks all this business and culture and employment comes around because some fat cat was like, “Hey, that looks like fun”, and just *poof* opens a spot, getting rich and sharing none of it.
First, you need experience in every role of your business, accounting, mechanical, social media, HR, PR, real estate, law, and a half doesn’t other fields to have a chance of thriving. Then you need to find money, usually in the form of a loan, so you need great credit, meaning you had to spend the last 7 years of your life making good decisions. Then you need luck to find a place to build it, or you need a perfectly functional business just like you’re looking for to magically go on the market at a great price, so you aren’t burdened with excessive debt. Then you have to BUST YOUR FUCKING ASS for at least 6 months before you open and many years after you open. I’m talking 80+ hrs a week.
Just know that after all that work, luck and will power, spending all your savings for a thing that you love, after getting off the ground, building a healthy culture, finally seeing it take flight and seeing your community believe in you, give you a chance and support you, it takes exactly 1 person to interpret your words or actions uncharitably, or hold you accountable for a mistake in the most brutal of ways, disallowing you humanity, to sink your business. People will put a target on your back in spite of your best efforts and good heart. They will treat you like an asshole when you are truly trying to help, because that is the narrative that they were told by their local angry city council member.
So yeah, “fuck off, kiddo”. I do not have empathy for someone slandering a business owner without a really good argument, and “they work too hard” is one of the most toothless, poorly informed arguments you could make, and I wouldn’t hire someone I knew had a history of this sort of thing, because protecting workplace culture is important to me.
So can you tell us the name of your restaurant?
Is it Glo’s?
Why would I do that while using an alias. You don’t get to have publicly known opinions and run a business in Seattle.
Callow and bitchy is no way to go through life, scooter.
also sorry restaurant owners opinions are not welcome here:)
We get it, you think only people that agree with you deserve to have rights or opinions about things that affect them, no need to keep repeating yourself. Stop trying to control everyone and get a life.
Wow, sounds like a personal hobby that contains your whole ego, not a sound enterprise based on partnership. No points for putting this on yourself.
Certainly not looking for points, bud. Just making sure that the real world you live in is on record somewhere inside this echo chamber. At a minimum, people can read and make their own judgements. If this was about my ego, I’d use my real name, ya ding dong. I’m your neighbor and I serve this community.
You’re not totally oblivious to the enterprise risk that attaching your name to your comments would engender. Like that’s just smart business, and you’re a businessman.
Right. And why are you not using your real name? Are you more human, and thus not subject to the same expectations?
It’s mostly so I can keep cracking wise and making jokes without catching a suckerpunch by everyone I’ve goofed on, who seem to take a lot of this very seriously and present a 1:1 identity between their Online Self and Offline Self.
I actually did have someone take exception to my comments once on Twitter and track me down and threaten to show up at my work, but then I asked if we’d be making out or fighting because I like both and they dropped it.
To be fair, if the shit you say online isn’t something you’d say to someone’s face, you are, in fact, a spineless troll. If you said, to my face, that my business was a hobby, not a sound enterprise, and mocked me in response to trying to talk about real, personal struggles, which helps improve our city to shed light on, I would punch you in the throat. Am I gonna hunt you down? Hardly worth it. But you, and YNSN, and a few others on here, simply do not treat people the same respect you demand for others, and the difference between those two factions is simply that you see yourself in the people you are trying to protect. In difference to this, I, and many like me, are actually fighting for something that we believe is good for EVERYONE. You know, a functional society. And when you are out, having real struggles, trying to live a decent life, and you continue to listen to thoughtless, spineless children playing chaotic evil all over the place because they think it’s fun, well yeah, I’m not surprised someone came to track you down. You should treat people with more respect.
Did you decide you wanted to do this whole restaurant thing so you could be a martyr of your own meglomania?
Yeah, his little interview was laughable. As a cook for over twenty years, I can’t ever imagine complaining that the owners were working too hard. That’s an extremely odd complaint.
From the horses mouth: “a small core of three to four employees “to counter organize” against the union efforts”. Counter organizing is well within a workers right and is NOT the defininition of union busting. Some staff were in favor, some were not. Those not in favor were a majority in the vote. Quitting for losing is giving major wounded white guy energy.
It turns out collective bargaining against an organization without any money can’t magically produce results. Something something blood from stone.
Like CD Resident below said, without a single example of what constituted “Union Busting” offered up that’s an inflammatory word to use when we can’t judge for ourselves whether we should be getting out any pitchforks.
Here’s my guess as to what happened. There was no more money but they could negotiate on who got the bad shifts. 11 of the 23 staff were senior members and the union plan was to give them all the best shifts. 12 of the 23 staff realized that the union meant they only ever got the short end of the stick at the expense of the senior staff and decided the union wasn’t so hot for them.
Considering how much turnover there is at restaurants and how short tenure generally is– most people don’t plan on sticking around long enough to benefit as opposed to industries where you make a career in the union, collect pension, seniority to look forward to etc.
Or maybe it’s something completely different. But absent any comment whatsoever from anyone involved I guess wild speculation is all we’ve got to go on.
This sounds most plausible out of all the speculation (based on prior experience working with a union). Unions reward longevity because they (try to) make viable careers so that staff make a decent living over time and companies have stable staffing. We are now culturally so far removed from career paths that stay in one or two places, plus the COL here is so high that people can’t really wait for long-term rewards.
Add in the stress of a new/renewed business just re-opening working with a relatively new union still finding its feet, and it’s not hard to see that the benefits of being in a union may not be apparent to those joining the company since opening.
I’m just sad for all the workers at Glo’s right now – to have this come down to one vote has to be heartbreaking.
As a note to CHS, “–seen at companies like Starbucks where the coffee giant has been accused of violation of labor laws over actions intended to stop, slow, or roll back unionization like making “coercive statements” and threats of shutdown or relocation.”
Not just accused, but subsequently found guilty in a ruling by Judge Mara-Louise Anzalone.
in the end, glo’s shot themselves in the foot. These are some damn good workers.
The workers voted to get rid of the union…
Ah, but apparently those workers don’t deserve a choice and should just accept disenfranchisement and be forced to pay $30 a month against their will because this scab-hating person says so.
Think you’re missing some context there Guesty! Methinks!
Restaurants are dirty. Eat at home.
My home’s dirty. Eat me
Why does a small business like this with one location need a union to represent its workers? I feel as though simply confronting management with issues would be just as effective, especially if you do so as a group. Bringing a union in feels passive aggressive.
There’s nothing passive aggressive about repeatedly raising issues, finding no redress, then going to the trouble to form a union which can be undone rather easily as this whole episode shows. Unions aren’t a reflexive thing created out of nothing after one episode where ownership or management dug in their heels.