Coffee News Roundup: Week Ending March 4th

A hand turns the pages of a newspaper next to a cup of coffee, seen from above. Via Pexels.

SCA Suspends Russian Participation In World Coffee Championships - via Sprudge

Given the bloody and ongoing invasion of Ukraine and the moves of other organizations to expel Russia from competitions large and small, the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has announced that Russia will no longer participate in this year’s World Coffee Championship.

The decision was also taken to donate 100% of the revenue from ticket sales from the upcoming World of Coffee Warsaw to relief efforts for the Ukrainian coffee community.

Although the SCA acknowledges that “the Russian coffee community has called for peace and against division and has expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian coffee community”, the governing body has “made the difficult decision to suspend Russia’s participation in the World Coffee Championships.”

The first event this ruling will apply to is the World of Coffee Warsaw on June 23rd, which will include the World Latte Art, World Coffee in Good Spirits, World Cup Tasters, and World Coffee Roasting Championships 2022.

Read the full story here.

Starbucks Threatened to Shutter Stores Over Organizing, Union Claims - via Bloomberg

Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union that has been representing Starbucks employees across the United States in their efforts to unionize, has filed 20 complaints against the company with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in the past week.

These complaints range from discriminatory enforcement of policies—targeting union-affiliated workers with violations for dress code, language, or COVID-19 quarantines—to illegally coercing employees during anti-union meetings all the way to threatening to shut down all the locations in Buffalo, New York.

Starbucks, of course, rejects these allegations.

Of course, how effective the NLRB can be in response to accusations of union-busting is up for debate. While they can investigate and order policy changes or reinstatement of fired workers, they can’t issue fines, and experts have called the board “toothless” in the past.

Read the full story here.

Uganda Coffee Farmers Unhappy Over Withdrawal From ICO - via The East African

Some coffee producers in Uganda are not happy with their country’s recent decision to withdraw from the International Coffee Organization (ICO), worrying that the move will lead to a fall in exports and, therefore, lower income.

“Pulling out will automatically mean that our exports will drop in the next few years,” Steven Mutyaba said, “and to us farmers, it means that traders will not be able to buy our coffee yet we expect a bumper harvest this year.”

Uganda, already Africa’s biggest coffee exporter, targets becoming the world’s third largest by 2025 behind Brazil and Vietnam. But producers fear that withdrawal from the ICO could mean losing access to markets such as Europe, to where about 80% of Uganda’s coffee currently goes.

The Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) blamed unfair treaty terms on its decision to withdraw, while the ICO in a recent statement pushed back on such criticisms, saying that Uganda had failed to join a working group on the future of the International Coffee Agreement and had “not been actively participating in this process” before withdrawing.

Nevertheless, the ICO stated that the door was open to Uganda rejoining both the organization and the agreement.

Read the full story here.

Long shot of Colombian coffee farms with mountains in the distance.

More Headlines

USAID Backs Five-Year Peru Specialty Coffee Development Project

Nguyen Coffee Supply Lands $2.6 Million Funding Round

Asia Coffee Vietnam Prices Drop as Russia-Ukraine Conflict Hits Global Markets

Carbonic Maceration Coffee Wins Tanzania Ngorongoro Private Collection Auction

Ireland’s Cloud Picker Coffee Is Raffling Big Ticket Items For Ukraine

The Week in Coffee Unionizing

The standoff between striking baristas and the owners of Great Lakes Coffee Company in Detroit, Michigan, continues with workers filing unfair labor practices charges against the company.

The 20 striking workers claim that the owners are refusing to engage in “good faith collective bargaining”, and a second complaint against the company alleges that “the company interfered with its employees’ rights by demanding to know which workers would report to work after the workers first announced they would stay home due to COVID concerns.”

An interesting article in the Detroit Free Press gives a good overview of the case so far, and also looks at the rather unique way the workers are organizing: “So far, 20 of them have signed pledge cards, saying they want to unionize, but no vote has been taken and the company has not recognized it. This raises the question: Can workers simply declare they are part of a union and call for a contract?”

Is Coffee Good For You?

Gardening is good for you. Coffee is good for gardening. Therefore, it holds that coffee is good for you. That’s what Sprudge is saying anyway, and who am I to disagree.

Well, they’re really saying that coffee grounds can help with gardening—hydrangeas specifically, in this case—but let’s just go with it. Coffee, via gardening, is good for you.