Dive Brief:
- Workers at a Dunkin’ restaurant in Cincinnati filed for a union election with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ International Union (BCTGM) on Aug. 25, National Labor Relations Board records show.
- The push is the first union drive to reach the petition stage at Dunkin’ in more than 12 years, according to NLRB records. In 2011, a union drive at a Merrick, New York, Dunkin’ failed.
- Dunkin’ is the latest restaurant brand to face a union drive as organized labor tries a variety of strategies to get a foothold in the QSR space.
Dive Insight:
Franchised brands tend to be more difficult to organize than brands with stores that are company operated. Franchising systems fragment employment between a number of employers, resulting in unions having to wage separate campaigns, rather than a single, national campaign effort, labor experts have told Restaurant Dive.
If the union drive succeeds, the Dunkin’ location in question would be the first standalone Dunkin’ restaurant to unionize. It's possible Dunkin' units at airports, hospitals and grocery stores could be represented by a number of unions, as the SEIU, UFCW and UNITE HERE represent several such hubs.
The BCTGM did not respond to requests for comment and Dunkin’, through parent company Inspire Brands, declined to comment. Outside of Starbucks Workers United’s campaign and IWW’s Burgerville campaign, most union efforts in the QSR space in the last 10 years have been restricted to shop-floor actions and political pressure, a set of tactics exemplified by the Fight for $15 and a Union campaign.
Recently, SEIU’s Union of Southern Service Workers has begun working toward a new model of unionism that relies on a combination of organizing across industries in specific cities, shop floor actions and regulatory pressure campaigns. The USSW’s strategy resulted in a strike at a South Carolina Waffle House earlier this summer, and a march on the boss at an Atlanta Dunkin’ earlier this month.
Why BCTGM, which is not affiliated with SEIU, chose to pursue a union election at a 23-person Dunkin’ Donuts in Ohio is not clear. But it could signal that the upsurge in labor activity at the margins of the restaurant industry has not yet dissipated. BCTGM members struck Kellogg’s plants in 2021, and a Hormel plant in 2022.
