Since becoming a worker-owned cooperative, the employees of CUPS Cooperative Inc., doing business as White Electric Coffee, say they’ve rarely fallen into disagreement about the management of the business. But there was that one dispute over whether the bagels should be cut in half.
In the end, they settled it as a democracy, said Chloe Chassaing, who’s been a barista there for the past 18 years and is now one of the Providence restaurant’s nine worker-owners.
“It was surprisingly contentious,” she said. “It sounds kind of silly, but we actually had a vote on that. We don’t cut them in half.”
The former owners of the coffee shop closed it in 2020 after the staff voted to unionize. The workers eventually bought the property and the business from their former bosses, using loans from the Cooperative Fund of New England and donations from supporters.
White Electric reopened as Rhode Island’s first cooperatively run coffee shop on May 1 last year.
“It was a lot of work to get to that point,” Chassaing said. “One of the most important parts was not just the financial support but I feel more so the morale booster we got from the community. Hundreds of people donated. People encouraged us on social media. That helped keep us going when we weren’t sure it was possible.”Chassaing says much of the business has remained unchanged – it still serves breakfast and lunch and is still known for its lightning-fast service.
But the worker-owners there say they now feel more invested in the business, not just financially but emotionally.
Danny Cordova, who has worked there since 2019, said working in the food industry before this felt “like the closest thing to living in a totalitarian regime,” but now there’s a lot more pride and team spirit.
“It feels like we kind of have an environment where we can really collaborate,” he said.
Joelle Plante, who also started working there in 2019, said the workers feel a sense of pride and hold themselves and each other accountable for the success of the business.
“It’s a totally different experience than just being a sort of cog in the machine,” she said. “It’s not a situation where you just clock in and clock out and don’t think about your job until you work again.”
To become a worker-owner at White Electric, newcomers must go through a six-month probationary period and fork over $1,000, which can be deducted from their paychecks, spaced out over the course of nearly two years, Chassaing said. The money is returned to anyone who ends up leaving the company.
The coffee co-op has bylaws and worker-owner governance meetings each month, in which they collectively decide on issues such as price increases to keep up with inflation, Chassaing said.
If the business exceeds its expectation to break even, profits will be put into savings or be distributed among the worker-owners, Chassaing said.
“We’re surviving,” she said. “We’re not really expecting to make much profit this year but who knows?”
OWNERS: Nine worker-owners
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Coffee shop
LOCATION: 711 Westminster St., Providence
EMPLOYEES: 14, including five part-time workers
YEAR FOUNDED: 2000, reestablished as co-op in 2021
ANNUAL REVENUE: WND
Marc Larocque is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Larocque@PBN.com.
