Morningside Heights Board Game Cafe Workers Win 'Landslide' Union Vote

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, NY — Workers at a popular Manhattan board game cafe overwhelmingly voted in favor of being represented by a labor union two months after demanding recognition from their owners.

Over 70 percent of the workers at Hex & Co, a bustling board game cafe with locations on the Upper East Side, Union Square and Morningside Heights, voted in favor of the union during a Tuesday night vote, according to organizers.

“Winning a union means that I can feel secure in my job, and that I won’t have to be afraid to speak up when I feel something in my workplace is wrong," said Hex & Co worker Sasha Brunetti.

When asked for a statement on Wednesday, an unsigned email from Hex & Co stated that "we respect our employee's decision and look forward to negotiating."

The vote comes two months after Hex & Co workers announced their plans to unionize and presented a letter signed by nearly all of their staff asking for voluntary union recognition.
Owners Greg May and Jon Freeman, who additionally own their own board game cafes in Manhattan and Brooklyn — where staff at West Village's Uncommons and Brooklyn Strategist are also kicking off union campaigns of their own — declined to recognize their union back in October, triggering Tuesday night's successful vote.

What followed, according to Workers United, was a "relentless" six-week long anti-union campaign from May and Freeman.

"The owners engaged in an aggressive union busting campaign, spreading misinformation about unions in captive audience meetings, through individual conversations, as well as written material," Workers United said.

About 70 workers across the three Manhattan stores are represented, according to the union, including baristas, retail workers, bartenders, after school program workers and workers who run some of the games — also known as "dungeon masters."

50 of them voted for the union on Tuesday night.

“We finally have more control over a stressful part of our lives," said a Hex & Co worker named Gianluca.

A video posted by Workers United show a jubilant crowd inside a Hex & Co cafe, clapping and chanting "union, union, union."

“Winning our union means I don't have to listen to management try to convince me that I shouldn't have rights anymore," said worker Joseph Valle Hoag. "It means that the false rumors they have spread about me and the organizing committee can stop and It means my coworkers and I will finally be treated with the respect we deserve in the workplace.”

The vote was one of the first since a recent NLRB court decision, referred to as the Cemex Decision, gave unions a more streamlined process when it comes to getting official status and a leg up in protections during the election cycle.

The burden to petition the NLRB for an election if the union is not voluntarily recognized now lies with management, according to Restaurant Business Online. Previously, workers would petition the NLRB for an election if management declined to recognize the union.

And the decision places more burdens on employees to avoid unfair labor practices leading up to an election, giving the NLRB more power to force workers and bosses to engage in bargaining.