A beautiful, if chilly, day in midtown Halifax, NS. 

At Victoria Park, about 100 of us protested Israel’s genocide in Gaza,.  As the protesters began their march down Spring Garden Road, I met a wonderful old friend, an activist who works in grassroots anti-poverty work.  We sat on a bench and then decided to go across the street to Bliss Caffeine Bar to get a coffee and a snack. 

Every table and chair was occupied, but the restaurant had a line for those wanting takeout coffee.  My friend and I thought we’d get a hot drink and then head outside where we could continue our discussion while sitting on a bench.  Perfect.

I said I’d buy. Once at the takeout counter, all the staff were too busy to serve us.  After about 5 minutes, an attractive blonde woman of about 35 asked what we wanted.  She wasn’t friendly; she was rather curt. 

Since I had those few minutes before she came, I noticed on the shelves behind the counter a row of  brown two-kilo paper bags of Java Blend coffee beans – which I assumed is what Bliss uses. 

Java Blend is a roastery and café in Halifax’s northend.  A week ago, ex-employees and their union, SEIU Local 2, asked the public to boycott Java Blend and its products.  The business, which for about 25 years was family-owned, was sold to four men about four years ago.   When the owners got wind of a union organizing drive at their four (now three) locations, the fight was on.  Nine employees were fired in January. The owners claimed the workers were laid off merely due to the company’s financial problems.  

The employees and their union accused the owners of union-busting by terminating four of the employees in retaliation for union organising.  That is illegal under Nova Scotia’s Trade Union Act.  The workers through their union demanded they be reinstated and reimbursed for the wages they missed because they were fired.    Java Blend paid up to 40 cents more than NS’s minimum wage of $15.00 an hour (it increased to $15.20 on 1 April 2024). In 2023, the Living Wage in Halifax was $26.50/hour.   In NS, minimum wage is only 57% of the Living Wage.  By comparison, Toronto’s 2023 Living Wage of $25.05 per hour was $1.45 less than Halifax’s.   It costs more to live in Halifax than it does to live in Toronto! Yet overall, the wages in Halifax are far less.  

Last Sunday on 28 April, the union held a rally in front of the main coffee shop on North Street, to ask people to boycott  Java Blend—its cafés and and its goods.  

I went into the Bliss Caffeine Bar a week after the union’s rally. 

The server asked what I wanted.  I said that I was alarmed to see that Bliss used Java Blend  coffee beans because I had read there was a labour dispute at Java Blend and employees were fired for joining a union.  She glared at me and said loudly “so then go somewhere else for coffee.” 

“I’m the owner and the manager. … Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.”

That was like a slap.  I tried another tack.  I said, maybe if I could speak to the owner or manager, I could explain the problem with doing business with Java Blend.  She tossed her head and said angrily, “I’m the owner and the manager.  You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet.”  I said with a smile I had read about the dispute in the business section of the Chronicle Herald.  She responded testily, “Well don’t believe everything you read in the papers.”

“I got a lot of help over the last five years from Java Blend,” the owner insisted. “I’m friends with the owners, and they’re great people.  I don’t believe a word of what you say.”  Of course she is a client of the owners of Java Blend – not the near-minimum wage employees. 

Then she pointedly stared at the door. 

A polite political protest was turned into a matter of personal consumer choice

When I raised the issue it made her angry. She never tried to mollify me;  she didn’t say “I’ll look into it,” or “Why Don’t You Send Me Some Details.” Her attitude seemed to be  “I run my business how I like and that’s it.”’ I was disrupting her busy day, with her busy customers.  I gave her a problem she didn’t want at that moment; I brought the world into her restaurant –and it wasn’t as customers.  For her, the world at that moment was inside the four walls of her café. I intruded by raising the problem. 

It turned what I meant as a polite political protest into a matter of personal consumer choice.  If I don’t like it — leave. 

We are constantly told that small business owners are the salt of the earth, heroes, but not the people who work for them.  Those workers pull the shots but they don’t call the shots.   

This is the second retail sector incident of late. After 20 months of trying to negotiate a first collective agreement and seven weeks on strike, the 90 workers at Pete’s Frootique in downtown Halifax won union representation by the SEIU Local 2,  better wages and working conditions.  Pete’s is owned by Sobeys, one of Canada’s giant food store chains. Sobey’s  had no unionised supermarkets on Nova Scotia’s mainland and fought the workers tooth and nail.   Yet the employees hung tough and eventually won a first collective agreement.  More and more I see the issue of workers’ rights boiled down to personal consumer choice and that’s not right.   

By the way, my friend and I walked out of Bliss without our coffees. 

Featured painting above: The Night Café by Vincent van Gogh (Netherlands). This 1888 painting by van Gogh is at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn. USA.