New York-based Tabletop Workers United win a union contract after prolonged battle

Workers at three New York City-based board game cafes have successfully ratified a union contract nearly two years after first organizing. Tabletop Workers United, which represents over 100 staff from Hex&Co, The Brooklyn Strategist, and The Uncommons, says the contract will last three years and is the first of its kind for tabletop businesses in New York. Ratification transforms the contract from a tentative agreement between the union’s bargaining unit and ownership into a legally binding document.

The contract secures a number of critical demands for workers, including progressive pay increases that prioritize workers currently earning the least. This shakes out to a "19% increase, or a $2+/hour wage increase at all three businesses,” according to a press release from TWU. Other protected benefits include holiday pay and paid bereavement leave, scheduling consistency that extends out to at least two weeks, and protections against employees working double shifts, or “clopens” (opening, plus closing shifts), without prior consent.

The rest of the list ensures promotion opportunities for current employees first, grievance and arbitration processes, insistence on treating workers’ gender identity with “dignity and respect”, and creating a safe space for young transgender, nonbinary, or questioning members of afterschool programs by protecting counselors from being required to discuss identity with the student’s family. Finally, there are new “health and safety provisions, requiring management to respond effectively to sexual harassment and abusive customers.”

Since February of 2024, unionized workers have been locked in an embittered struggle with owners Jon Freeman and Greg May, who assured the process was marked by delays, obstinances and, in the case of ownership’s legal counsel, Andrew Hoffman, outright contempt. He allegedly called union members “fucking disgusting,” “moronic,” and “low-class” during negotiations and informed the bargaining committee that they “should all burn in hell.” Hoffman later claimed that the union’s demands were “encapsulating the absolute insanity of the woke.”

“Winning and ratifying the first Tabletop Workers United contract is truly incredible,” said Uncommons worker Casey Knepley. “I am so beyond proud of my coworkers and community members; without us working together to organize and take collective action to push ownership to meet with us, none of this would have been possible. I hope our small victory for these tabletop stores can inspire people everywhere, across the country, to work together and fight for what we need and deserve during this tough political climate. Our rights as workers and humans are not a game!”

TWU members remained proactive in their fight to ratify a contract. Workers at three Hex&Co locations executed a walkout during Labor Day weekend in 2024 to call attention to ownership’s alleged union-busting and retaliation, culminating in unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board. The Uncommons workers followed suit two weeks later. When The Brooklyn Strategist completed the hat trick with their own walkout, May and Freeman called police on their own workers to remove picketers from the sidewalk in front of stores.

In December of last year, TWU secured some “key economic demands” that have now been ratified in their new contract. Union workers were poised to authorize a strike, with a 77% supermajority of workers, before ownership relented. Negotiations since have run relatively smoother, perhaps due to the union successfully utilizing several strike votes, marches, and rallies meant to apply pressure to ownership — May and Freeman have avoided the theatrics that colored much of 2024.

“I’m proud and elated that we have won the first contract for tabletop workers in NYC,” said Brooklyn Strategist worker Payton Millet. “Our industry is a young and burgeoning one, so it is ever more crucial to secure protections and rights specific to our trade. No doubt our strongest weapons in the fight for these rights were our union’s nimbleness, courage to act, and the unwavering solidarity of our customers and friends for which we are deeply thankful. I hope that our victory can demonstrate the persistence of truths that some would seek to relegate to the past: that every workplace needs a labor union, that workers of every age, gender and race deserve just protections, and that as long as owners seek to reap value for others’ labor, we must demand back our fair share.”

TWU claims its new contract is thanks in no small part to the Tabletop Solidarity Committee, a coalition of nearly 2,000 customers and local supporters who signed boycott pledges, raised $15,000 for a strike hardship fund, and applied economic pressure through “in-store actions.” 

Workers at the three board game cafe franchises represent part of a gradually growing wave of unionized tabletop labor. In December 2024, the union representing workers at a Catalonian Vallejo factory used an indefinite strike to win safer working conditions and better pay against the popular wargaming paint manufacturer. TCGUnion-CWA rallied around an authentication warehouse in March of this year that was forced to close by parent company eBay, laying off hundreds of people. While it could not reverse corporate’s decision, the union managed to secure additional severance and benefits for those affected.