On November 1, eleven workers at the Daily Press, an independent coffee shop and bar in Brooklyn, New York, filed to unionize with Workers United (WU). Their organizing was touched off by a sudden and drastic cut in hours and threat of layoffs by the café’s owner in mid-October. Within a week and a half, workers unanimously filed with Workers United, the parent union of Starbucks Workers United. They are WU’s first independent coffee shop to organize with the union.

An uptick in organizing at small shops like the Daily Press won’t be enough to reverse labor’s long-standing decline. But the interest in unionization at workplaces that historically have not been organized is an indicator of a rising sense among some portions of the American workforce that unions are a solution to the problems they’re facing at work. Hadas Thier sat down with three of the organizers to talk about why and how they did it. Gabe Caldwell is a bartender who has been working at Daily Press since October 2020. Tomás Laster has been a bartender at Daily Press since June 2022. Amber Crabb has been a barista at Daily Press since April 2022.