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Verve Coffee Roasters has agreed to pay more than $180,000 after violating a local law that requires employers to pay for certain employees’ health benefits. The settlement will go to current and former staff at one of the California-based company’s San Francisco locations.
As St. John Barned-Smith reports for the San Francisco Chronicle, workers documented a series of healthcare violations before notifying the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement. An audit determined that the company failed to pay appropriate health expenditures to 33 current and former employees between July 2022 and June 2025.
“Without our organizing, Verve would likely have never paid what we were owed,” Annika Mikk, a barista at the Market Street location, said in a statement. Workers from three Verve locations in Santa Cruz and San Francisco unionized with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 in September.
“These baristas didn’t just secure justice under the law,” said Jim Araby, a spokesperson for UFCW Local 5. “They helped spark a movement for dignity, equity, and voice in the coffee industry.” The union is working with Verve to negotiate a first contract.
“The audit was an amicable, interactive and cooperative process,” Verve said in a statement. “We support the outcome as determined by the City of San Francisco. Our people and our culture are the center-point of who we are and that will never change.”
Read more on how Verve’s healthcare settlement from the San Francisco Chronicle here.
Photo by Jacob Baltierra on Unsplash
