Employees from Capitol Hill sister restaurants the Duck & the Peach, La Collina, and the Wells announced last week that they are making moves to unionize. Around 70 percent of the staff signed a petition asking for management of Eastern Point Collective to agree to a fair process for them to decide on unionizing, says Unite Here Local 25, which has also represented workers at Starr Restaurant Group and Knightsbridge Restaurant Group in their attempts to unionize.
During a pre-shift meeting last week, employees say management repeated anti-union talking points and told the workers they should file for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board. Unite Here Local 25 says the company has hired the same lawyer who is representing Stephen Starr and his restaurant group. In response, workers and their supporters picketed outside the Duck and the Peach over the weekend.
Eastern Point Collective founder Hollis Silverman did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But someone involved in DC’s restaurant scene for decades—who “has observed Hollis’s leadership” and spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for retribution from the union—says Silverman has been a champion for workers throughout the industry.
“The restaurant industry is tough any day, but particularly in this economy. And even still, Hollis is doing more than anyone to support her people,” the restaurant veteran says. “If the unions take down someone like Hollis Silverman, they’re stopping progress for workers at hundreds and hundreds of small family-owned restaurants across the country.”
In announcing the union push, Unite Here Local 25 played up the Duck and the Peach as a Democratic fundraising hotspot. The group has gotten dozens of Democratic lawmakers—including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—to boycott Starr restaurants as the union fight there has continued on for nearly a year. But Unite Here Local 25 spokesperson Benjy Cannon says the union did not target the Duck and the Peach and its sister spots. Rather, he says some workers from the restaurant first approached Unite Here Local 25 a year ago, and their support developed organically. While Eastern Point Collective has built a reputation for trying to take care of its workers, employees say that’s not always the case.
“Starting there, I definitely was attracted by a lot of the promises of inclusivity,” says Stokley Lewis, a bartender at the Duck and the Peach for the last four years. “As time went on, I just noticed that there was a real compromise of values.”
For example, Lewis—who uses they/them pronouns—says they were constantly misgendered. “Even in the times where I have asked for support from managers because of misgendering, I’ve seen a lack of support in return,” Lewis says. Meanwhile, a manager would sometimes ask them if certain customers were male or female. “It’s not really up to what I think. It’s just a lot,” they say. Lewis adds that they hope that a union would also help combat unfair retaliation, haphazard scheduling, and more.
Meanwhile, Emily Farrell, a bartender and server at the Duck and the Peach and La Collina, says she’s felt that her cocktail ideas haven’t been taken as seriously as those of her male colleagues. She says after she expressed her frustrations to managers earlier this fall, her hours working the bar—where she says she can make bigger tips—were cut “drastically.” Asked if she felt it was retaliation for complaining, Farrell says, “I’m not in the their minds. I can only just say, I spoke about this. Since then, I have only been behind the bar maybe one day a week.”
Alice Rubino, a server assistant, says she’s been worn down trying to juggle responsibilities at all three restaurants within a single shift because of low staffing. At the same time, she says she hasn’t been scheduled for enough hours to qualify for the company’s health insurance plan. “When I have tried to get more hours from management, generally they just never follow up and they seem to just completely forget or deliberately not care,” Rubino says.
Even before Initiative 82 made service fees widespread, Hollis Silverman was a champion of a new hospitality pay model which used a 22 percent charge to provide consistent salaries and reduce the pay gap between kitchen and service staff. But in September, after Congress passed “no tax on tips” legislation—which doesn’t create the same tax benefits for service fees as it does for tips—the restaurants switched to a traditional tipping model. It now has a 3 percent “kitchen benefits fee.”
Workers expressed mixed feelings about the change. Farrell says that while the company did ask for feedback, she’s not sure it was taken seriously. Lewis, meanwhile, says there was not enough information provided before the change.
“We, at the end of the day, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” Farrell says. “And at this moment, we just want a fair process to unionize.”
Meanwhile, Unite Here Local 25 continues to protest Starr Restaurant Group over unionization efforts at St. Anselm, Le Diplomate, and Pastis. Workers at St. Anselm voted to unionize in February, while those at Pastis voted against it. An election was never held for Le Diplomate, and both sides have lobbed accusations against each other, including those of intimidation and retaliation. Recently, the National Labor Relations Board announced that it is pursuing charges against St. Anselm for alleged union busting activity. Complaints against Knightsbridge—which operates Rasika, where employees attempted to unionize—are still pending. (Modena, where there was also a union push, has since closed.)
In a statement, Starr Restaurant Group said it “strongly disagrees” with the NLRB allegations and looks forward to “vigorously defending” itself at a hearing, set to take place in February. “The charges are a product of relentless false narratives which are typical tactics of Local 25 to drum up negative press when it cannot gain momentum,” the group says in a statement, noting that it has filed its own charges against Unite Here Local 25.
Jessica Sidman covers the people and trends behind DC’s food and drink scene. Before joining Washingtonian in July 2016, she was Food Editor and Young & Hungry columnist at Washington City Paper. She is a Colorado native and University of Pennsylvania grad.
