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Baristas at four La Colombe Coffee Roasters stores in Chicago recently joined UFCW Local 881. The 45 hard-working women and men voted to join our union family because they were concerned about staffing, scheduling and other day-to-day operations at the stores and wanted a voice in the workplace. This organizing win is part of the national La Colombe Union organizing campaign.

The four La Colombe Coffee Roasters stores are located on E. Elm Street, W. Randolph Street, Armitage Avenue and N. Clark Street. With this organizing win, UFCW Local 881 now represents four out of the five La Colombe Coffee Roasters stores in Chicago.        

“I think I speak for everyone unionizing at La Colombe that we aren’t just thinking about ourselves, but we’re thinking about a much larger movement,” said Elise Vazquez, a barista at La Colombe store on  E. Elm Street, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.

In addition to the four stores in Chicago, the UFCW also represents workers at the La Colombe Coffee Roasters Chinatown location in Washington, D.C., who were the first La Colombe Coffee Roasters workers in the country to unionize with UFCW Local 400.  

On March 21, about 60 delivery drivers and delivery depot staff at the Stachs-Eaze cannabis delivery depot in Van Nuys, Calif., voted overwhelmingly to unionize with UFCW Local 770.

These workers joined our union family in order to address several workplace issues, including delivery driver safety, and to improve scheduling, pay and access to affordable health insurance and other benefits.

“I’m excited that my coworkers and I voted to form a union at Eaze,” said Ronald Swallow, a delivery driver. “Being a UFCW member gives us the best chance to get fair pay and benefits, as well as labor protections. Workers are stronger and happier as a community if we band together in solidarity.”

The Van Nuys depot vote follows recent successful unionization efforts by Eaze delivery drivers in northern California, who are represented by UFCW Local 5. The Van Nuys workers will join alongside fellow Bay Area Eaze delivery employees as members of the Cannabis Workers Union, UFCW.

Stachs is a wholly owned subsidiary of Eaze, the largest multi-state cannabis delivery operator in the U.S. Eaze is headquartered in San Francisco.