Members of the Mercury Café Union — including many who currently do not work there — are calling for a boycott of the Five Points restaurant and community arts center, alleging a refusal to negotiate a federally mandated contract.
The Mercury Café opened in 1975 and has hosted a wide variety of artists since then. Bands like Weezer, Radiohead and Bikini Kill have graced its relatively tiny stage. Andrea Gibson, Colorado’s current Poet Laureate, wrote that they want their ashes to be spread at the iconic venue.
Employees of Mercury Café won their union election in August 2023 by relatively thin margins. Ten of the Mercury Café’s 16 employees at the time cast ballots, with eight voting to form a union with Communications Workers of America Local 7777.
Workers at the time said they wanted to improve workplace conditions by building a schedule with consistent shifts, raising their minimum wage and obtaining health insurance.
Mercury Café, 22nd and California streets. (Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite)
But since then it’s been rough waters for the unionized staff. Contract negotiations have reached an impasse, and the two parties haven’t met at the bargaining table since August. And many, if not all, of the union’s founding members are no longer employed by the Mercury Café.
CWA Local 7777 has filed several unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that Mercury Café owners have refused to bargain, illegally terminated union members and changed workplace structure without consulting the union first.
Most charges are awaiting judgment — a charge alleging an illegal change in terms and conditions of employment was dismissed by the NLRB in July, citing a “lack of cooperation” in supplying evidence.
Negotiations are stalled as the bargaining committee’s employment is up in the air
Anthony Scorzo, president of CWA Local 777, said members of the Mercury Café union’s bargaining committee have been taken off the schedule, essentially terminating their employment.
“In my view, it’s a union-busting tactic to weed out the bargaining unit or thin the bargaining unit down so that there’s nobody left working there, basically,” Scorzo said.
Because of that, workers will remain unsure about their standing as a union until the NLRB rules on the unfair labor practice charges CWA filed, a situation Scorzo described as rare.
To make matters more complicated, Mercury Café owners have contracted with a third-party food service company to run its kitchen.
“They have employees, but it’s not clear to us whether they’re on Mercury’s payroll or the contractor’s payroll,” Scorzo said.
Mercury Café co-owner Danny Newman, a Denver entrepreneur with a penchant for buying and renovating iconic local establishments, like My Brother’s Bar in LoHi, told Denverite that there are currently 16 people on the payroll, and he considers 10 of them to be part of the union.
However, Newman said none of their current employees are pushing contract negotiations or calling for a boycott.
Mercury Cafe owner Danny Newman addresses guests during a party for the restaurant’s new menu. July 14, 2022.
“There are a couple folks that are part of the union, that are very much running it, that have not been employees for a while for various reasons,” Newman said. “They’re not convincing the other half of the people to spend outside work hours thinking about work.”
Anna McGee, a founding member of the Mercury union, said members who have since left or been fired by Newman are calling for a boycott because they feel they deserve to finish what they started. McGee herself no longer works for Mercury Café, but has filed a complaint to the NLRB alleging wrongful termination.
“That is why a current ask or demand of us with this boycott is not only to finalize the contract, but is to reinstate workers that want to go back that are waiting or sitting on the sidelines to get back in there to be a part of the union and to be a part of the process,” McGee said.
The cost of running a small business played into negotiations breaking down
Newman said he was initially enthusiastic to negotiate with the union, but balked at some of their demands.
“The big stuff is just stuff that’s so different and truthfully just undoable at any kind of restaurant, the minimum wage, 30 paid days off a year, completely known schedules forever,” he said.
He also pushed back against allegations that he and co-owners were union-busting. He claimed that removing people from the schedule was a purely financial decision.
“The reality is that we kept everybody very much over-scheduled for a very long time,” Newman said. “We held onto the very last minute where there just literally was no more well to go back to get any additional funds.”
When Denverite shared Newman’s claims with Scorzo, he said Mercury Café owners nonetheless broke federal labor laws when they changed working conditions, even though a contract hadn’t been negotiated.
A tasting party for the Mercury Cafe’s new menu. July 14, 2022.
Newman said the Mercury Café has been operating at a loss ever since he acquired a stake in it in June 2021. While he was willing to operate at a loss for a time and inject his own cash into the business to prop it up, he said a family health crisis earlier this year forced him to withdraw funding. Now, he’s even willing to sell the restaurant or bring in more investors to secure its future.
With the Mercury Café’s finances in dire straits, Scorzo and McGee said it is not their intent for the boycott to force the Five Points restaurant to shut down. Rather, they said they want to agree to a contract and have terminated employees return to work so they can collaborate to keep the Mercury Café alive.
“We don’t want it to be something that is a ‘us versus them’ situation. It’s something that we hope we can be a part of,” McGee said.
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