Labor victory!
Brooklyn Friends School leaders
to withdraw anti-union petition George Tenedios,
CEO and co-founder
of fresh&co, doesn’t
sleep well. The insomnia
started in March, when
the pandemic forced
him to shutter all 19 of
his fast-casual, locally
sourced fresh-food
restaurants.
“The thought of
losing the brand entirely
continuously runs through my head,” said Tenedios, who tried to stay open
but hemorrhaged to less than one percent of sales in a matter of days. With
his team of 950 employees reduced to a skeletal crew of five, it took him
60 days before reopening, slowly.
“I keep imagining what the landscape will look like if all independent
operators can’t afford to re-open in the next six months and stay alive,”
he said.
Yet Tenedios has found some jewels in the gloom that have quelled his
anxiety, at least a bit.
THE FACELIFT
“One major opportunity we’ve found is to streamline the menu,” he said.
“We were forced to dive into our purchasing and sales data and determine
what the popular items were, and what were not so popular – and reduced
our menu by 15 percent, which will be permanent.”
Tenedios’ methodology translates to most businesses: Identify your labor
intensive items, low volume items, and high cost items, take one or all of
three of these categories and pull your product mix, or purchasing data
and compile a list. “These are the items that you should be removing ASAP,
even if it’s just a five percent reduction,” he said.
His company’s marketing underwent a facelift too. “There are no guerilla
tactics anymore with marketing,” he said, “no one wants to touch anything
– now it’s all digital.”
So Tenedios stopped producing print flyers and promos and has poured
resources into his email list – he’s cleaned and segmented it by zip code
so he can send location-specific announcements. He’s also upgraded the
restaurants’ smartphone app. By drilling down into data and identifying
multiple customer tiers, he’s increased the loyalty rewards program, while
also implementing point of sale technology that’ll make it easier for app
users to get their meals more efficiently.
LESSONS LEARNED
With hindsight, Tenedios says he would have done things differently, or
course. “In May when we began reopening our locations, I probably should
have opened fewer stores,” he said. “We could have focused more on a
few strategic locations around Manhattan, and honed in on the existing
population of the city.”
He’s had to permanently shutter five locations, and expects that another
four will fail. He’s still only at 10 percent of pre-COVID sales, with about 25
percent of team members back on payroll.
But he’s banking on New York’s resilience. “We’ve gone through it all
before, 9/11, the recession – everything goes into shambles for a time
and then we bounce back,” he said. “Once the political season and the flu
season is over, New York City will be back.”
He’s still anxious, of course, if only because he can’t stomach the idea of
the city devoid of a fast casual, fresh food option. “NYC’s fast casual scene
filled with only the big commercial and fast food chains?,” he asked with
comic effect, “it makes me sick!”
COURIER L 14 IFE, OCT. 16-22, 2020
Brooklyn Friends School at Pearl Street in Downtown Brooklyn. Photo by Kevin Duggan
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Brooklyn Friends School leadership
will withdraw its petition to decertify
a staff union, the school’s principal
Crissy Cáceres said in an email
to parents late Wednesday.
“We have been negotiating in good
faith for many days, and we believed
we would come to a full resolution today.
Unfortunately, the UAW was not
able to come to terms with us. Nevertheless,
because children are absolutely
at the center for us, and we
refuse to continue allowing our children
to suffer, Crissy and the Board
of Trustees have agreed to withdraw
the petition,” read the joint statement,
which landed in parents’ inboxes just
before 9:30 pm.
Labor leaders with the United Auto
Workers Workers Local 2110 — which
helped staff form a union with a large
majority last year — had been negotiating
with the bigwigs of the Downtown
Brooklyn Quaker private school
since Friday, and staff struck outside
the Pearl Street building Monday and
Tuesday, leading to the school’s closure
those days.
School employees declared they
would walk out of the classroom until
the administration halted its efforts to
dissolve the staff union by withdrawing
their August petition with the National
Labor Relations Board seeking
to decertify the union on religious
grounds. School leaders claim the collective
bargaining effort violates the
educational institution’s Quaker values.
Workers held off strikes on Wednesday
to continue talks with the school,
but planned to resume the picket line
Thursday morning if an agreement
was not met.
When reached by phone Wednesday
night, UAW 2110 President Maida
Rosenstein said workers had won a
hard-fought victory and that Thursday’s
strike will not take place.
“Strike is over, it’s a total victory,”
said Rosenstein. “It’s really great that
they’re going to withdraw the petition,
people are very happy to be able to go
back to their jobs… We’re hoping for a
new beginning here.”
Schneps Media Insights:
How a Local CEO
Pivoted In Pandemic
By Brian Keith
Schneps Media Insights shares insights and innovations that help New York’s
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