Hi, I'm Kit, a family member and friend of Democracy on Locke staff, and I'm raising money to help unionized Democracy workers pay their rent this Christmas, after the owner, Chris Mindorff opted to close the restaurant with only two weeks warning, and no severance offered to staff. Even within these final two weeks, management has repeatedly opted to close early, robbing staff of a chance to make money where they can, and robbing loyal customers of a chance to say goodbye to a community institution. Our goal of $6,000 would give each worker $500 to offer a small cushion during this difficult transition as they say goodbye and begin their job searches.

Please read on for a letter in Democracy workers' own words:

On December 5th, workers at Democracy found out that our café was unexpectedly closing in less than two weeks.

We were officially laid off on December 21st, four days before Christmas.

The news hit only two months after our first union contract was ratified. As a team, we worked hard to win a contract that protected our job security, our safety, and basic fairness. Even though many of us were unfairly targeted for our union work (we even filed a Labour Board complaint and were compensated for the union-busting we experienced), we kept fighting for fairness.

Now, owner Chris Mindorff is claiming that he can’t operate the café “due to the recent resignations of key management.”

This notice came less than 24 hours after our General Manager announced her resignation. That same week, our Assistant General Manager also resigned. No workers were approached about taking on manager tasks, and to our knowledge there was no search to hire a replacement manager.

The shocking truth? Chris transferred our General Manager and Assistant General Manager to new jobs at his non-unionized cafés. Chris owns five other “small” businesses in the Hamilton area – Mulberry Coffeehouse, Paisley Coffeehouse, Donut Monster, RedChurch Cafe, and Station One.

As workers, we are heartbroken to lose our community at Democracy.

We are gutted to overhear managers misleading customers about their “resignation”.

We are angered that the year we spent building a safer, better workplace is being tossed down the drain.

And we are terrified about unexpectedly losing our jobs so close to the holidays.

The community’s response to Democracy’s closure has been incredibly touching. We have been overwhelmed by the support and encouragement we’ve received. To the many wonderful community members who have asked how to support us– your donations will give us a bit of stability and a safety net as we try to find jobs in late December…

Our goal is to raise $6000, which would cover around two weeks of expenses for each of the 12 laid-off unionized workers.

Many of us have worked here for years, and we are so grateful for the community that has made Democracy such a special place. Thank you so very, very much your support.

Sincerely,

The (Former) Workers at Democracy on Locke