Solidarity Amidst Rebellion: Tattersall Distillery Workers Organize For Justice

by Krystle D’Alencar

I didn’t expect to speak to 200 people at the rally.

The workers at Tattersall Distilling are unionizing. My coworkers are unionizing. I’m unionizing. The rally was held on June 29th to show community support. I was ready to be active and present, maybe talk to some journalists, but never on a megaphone. In fact, I handed it off multiple times before I finally got the courage to speak. What I finally said was simple:

“This started because we asked for a meeting.”

The proposed meeting was to talk about the COVID-19 preparedness plan we received on June 9th. The safety measures presented gave us all pause. Sure, it had what the state asked restaurants and bars to implement, “stay six feet apart, wear a mask,” but logistically, there was nothing. The email gave us a week to provide our availability. We wanted the meeting to talk the plan through, and get a better idea of what we were agreeing to be available for.

All the while we watched as COVID-19 cases climbed in states that first reopened their bars and restaurants. Naturally we wanted to have a voice in the conversation, given that this is a matter of our health and well-being. For some of our immune compromised coworkers, it is a matter of life and death. We are the ones asked to work in close proximity to each other, with high exposure to potentially-infected customers. Fast forward and we can see cities shutting down their bars as they become hot spots for infection.

In our group meetings, other concerns were brought up to present to management. A majority of staff have been deeply active during the uprisings in Minneapolis. We spent nights keeping watch with our neighbors, we spent days protesting and providing resources to communities who lost their only access to groceries. We worked to move unsheltered communities into hotels, we advocated and pushed for the dismantling of the Minneapolis Police Department.

We cooked community meals, we made countless calls. Through these experiences we realized, for the first time in many of our lives, what power we had in numbers. The uprisings helped motivate us, as they did across the country. Despite being marginalized and socioeconomically disadvantaged, we could create change.

Unlike the owners, management team, PR team, and marketing team, our front of the house (servers and bartenders) and back of the house staff (distillers and bottlers) are a diverse group of people that are POC, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA. Many of us share community and hold similar principles around politics and social movements. Almost all of us are activists. We had the momentum, energy, and vision for something different. In our response to management we not only asked to have a meeting before giving availability, but recognized the way identity also affected our health and safety at work. We asked for all employees to have diversity and inclusion training by the end of the year. We wanted explicit protection from racism, sexism, and transphobia when working. Lastly, we asked that they divest from the MPD.

Few folks know the emotional and mental obstacles that exist in the service industry. Even less understand how much heavier that gets the more marginalized one is. We have to be “on” through our entire shift in ways many jobs don’t require. We have patrons facing us, watching us work and interacting with us every second. The service industry deals with over a quarter of all sexual harassment complaints in the workplace. The number of incidents that go unreported are infinite.

We are expected to maintain a welcoming atmosphere despite the most horrendous behavior. Imagine a person of color, a woman of color, or someone who is LGBQTIA having to push through their shift after an offensive comment all to avoid getting “stiffed.” Do you know how many times I’m asked in a week where I’m from? When I respond, “Boston” it never lands, so they keep pushing, “No. I mean what ARE you?”

I’m a queer woman of color who works in a very white city. I know the limitations of diversifying the workplace, but by god have we tried and made many small wins. That has been our work, not management. We recommend our friends of different ethnicities, we demand the bar isn’t cis-white male dominated, we push for who gets hired. However, the back office where people hold the most power? Not one person of color. Entirely cis, entirely white, and entirely heterosexual, save one. Our FOH and BOH want these folks to understand what our jobs entail and to recognize their privilege.

One of the owners was a bartender for years, but he is a cis white male who has long been removed. We are the ones pushing out six craft cocktails, in as many minutes, with a bar packed three people deep. We run that room, we manage the guests, and we deserve a say in how to do it safely. We deserve protection against racist comments. In this global pandemic, we deserve comprehensive safety protocol against the spread of COVID-19. The preparedness plan presented didn’t outline how to deal with a belligerent patron, three drinks in, who refuses to wear a mask. Google photos of bars opened amidst COVID-19 if you want to see the horror show it could be. People who respect the lives of workers are not the ones going out.

Our letter was met with a response expressing “disappointment” in our not bringing these matters up “sooner." We were told there would now be one-on-one meetings and

“[Tattersall Distilling] is going to be bringing in more outside candidates as well to help improve diversity. New regulations on reduced capacity means that we will be bringing back less people.”

In other words, we would have to re-interview for our jobs. Jobs that were repeatedly said to be waiting for us, all under the spiteful guise of “diversifying.” They took our suggestion, that first and foremost should start with their lily-white office, and turned it around on us—the only group that has been diversifying from the beginning despite the little power we had. The letter finished with a warning that if we did not give our availability under these new terms, they would interpret it as “refusal of employment.”

The one-on-ones were an obvious divide and conquer tactic. We stated in a final letter that we were interested in returning to work, but that still wanted to meet as a group.

That night we heard from someone in the office that warned, “as a friend,” management’s plan of action. Rather than have a simple meeting, a conversation, they would cut off our unemployment. Next week. This threat of retaliation is what drove us to unionize. I reached out to folks who could help and was put in touch with UNITE HERE Local 17.

We researched, discussed, and decided unionizing was the only way Tattersall would listen. Threatening to cut us off from income, knowing so many live paycheck to paycheck, was sickening. That the arrogance of feeling personally “betrayed” and angered by our organizing would guide their decision making was inexcusable.

I have long known the powerful protection of the union and why they were formed to begin with, but never explored the option myself. I come from a family of immigrants who have worked plenty of service jobs, mainly custodial work. In the food and drink industry, I know first hand who typically makes up the back of the house and the lowest paying jobs.

This movement to unionize has felt far bigger than me. Once I graduate I will be moving into the environmental justice sector. The question I’m asked most often is “why this movement, why now?” I cannot express enough how intertwined all the movements for social justice are. They revolve around abuse of power from the patriarchy, capitalism, and whiteness. This fight is not just about protection for 17 employees in a distillery. This fight is about giving power to the people who make every working institution possible.

Krystle D’Alencar is a Afro-Latinx, queer woman and bartender at Tattersall Distillery in Minneapolis and a member of the union organizing committee.

AdminJuly 2, 2020