Portland coffee company becomes first in Maine to ratify contract with labor union [Video]

Coffee By Design and a recently formed union of baristas have reached an agreement that boosts wages, rewards long-time employees and lays out a strategy for improved relations between the company’s workers and managers, officials said.

It is the first independent coffee shop in Maine to have ratified a contract with a labor union, a spokesperson for the Laborers’ International Union of North America, or LIUNA, said in a statement Friday.

“Today’s announcement should be an immense point of pride for Coffee By Design and the workers who power its success,” said Jason J. Shedlock, a regional organizer with the union. “This process showed that when workers and management commit to actively listen to each other, challenge each other’s assumptions of what’s possible and jettison the preconceived construct of winners and losers; a pathway to shared goals becomes clear.”

Fifteen Coffee By Design baristas and front-of-house staff are now members of Local 327, which has a total of about 400 …