COFFEE WARS: Gorilla Employee Speaks [And It Ain't Pretty]

This is what "ExEmp" had to say for themselves in response to Darlene from Gorilla Coffee's terse explanation of what went down with the Norma Rae employee walkout:

"It's not quite so clear cut as Darlene would like to make it.

Darlene is the owner. Carol is not an owner, but she *is* Darlene's partner.

The mass-quitting is related to a number of promises that Darlene made while Carol was away (including a lessened role for Carol) and was later overturned when Carol returned.

The fact is that Gorilla has more employees walk out on it than all of the other people I have ever heard of walking out on their jobs combined. I've always viewed walking out as and extreme measure, but this is a regular occurrence there.

Why?

Carol is absolutely insane and makes life pretty miserable for lots of employees. She's got real control issues...too much for somebody who isn't an owner.

Employees are also required to complete a long list of closing duties at the end of the night. That would be fine, but employees are only paid for 30 minutes past closing, which means if it takes you any longer (which it usually does--and you MUST complete your tasks), you're working for free. Does that sound legal to you? And can you imagine what kind of environment that causes? You would think that employees must be getting paid a ton of money for that kind of policy to be in place. Guess again.

And they've pulled some really dirty shit. They've had employees go to training seminars where it cost hundreds of dollars and then refused to reimburse them. They've had employees visit coffee farms abroad and then not reimburse them because "they didn't ask enough questions."

And when they want somebody gone, but they have no reason to fire them, they create one. On multiple occasions, they've changed the schedule on employees after the schedule came out and then fired them for not showing up for their shift. It's happened multiple times and is a known tactic, but it hardly stops them.

There you have it: your homegrown Brooklyn coffee company."

The New York Times has even more scoop here (hint: shit's gone from bad to worse).

DAYM, this is getting really G-O-O-D people. I might start drinking coffee after all...shit isn't nearly as interesting at Ace Supermarket where I buy my millions of cases of Diet Coke. They've got like one angry cat and that cool homeless dude that hangs out, but that's about it.

Anyway.

Fight the power ex-Gorilla heads! Fuck the police! POWER TO THE PEOPLE! Blah, blah, blah.