Board Game Cafe Workers Are Unionizing Because Nothing Makes Sense Anymore

This may be news to you, but there are establishments known as board game cafes. It's what it sounds like. People come in, they drink a coffee or two, and they play board games.

What might shock you is that employees at a few of these places in New York City have unionized.

Although, maybe that does make sense to you in a weird way. If only because, frankly, nothing makes sense anymore.

According to The New York Times, board game cafe workers at a place called Hex & Co. marched into their bosses and demanded their union be recognized. A few months later, they joined Workers United. If that sounds familiar, it's because that's the same union a lot of Starbucks workers have been joining.

I've always been a fence-rider when it comes to unions. They're needed in some lines of work and have done some good. But then there are times when it's just a waste of time and money for employers. Employers who are honestly doing some employees a favor by giving them a job in the first place.

People whose job involves teaching people how to play board games fall into the latter camp. At least in this humble writer's opinion.

But hey, maybe I'm ignorant of the rigors of working in a board game cafe. Surely, their gripes will be on par with the union men of old. The ones who climbed out of mines and coughed up a couple of lungs' worth of coal dust when the whistle blew at the end of the day.

Teaching people how to play Dungeons & Dragons isn't a game... actually, it is... but you know what I mean. (Getty Images)

The Board Game Employees Had Complaints That Will Make You Crack Up

The article lists two main issues: unhappiness over dollar-an-hour raises and having to deal with "bands of unruly children."

I mean, everyone wants higher wages and not having to deal with annoying kids. If that is the extent of it, well, then, they've already got it pretty good

One 18-year-old employee did complain about communication from ownership.

“The owners aren’t great at rescheduling meetings or answering emails, or they make changes without telling us, like changes to the menu,” she said.

Another employee was upset about the $17-an-hour wage he made teaching board games to kids as part of an after school program. He was incensed that he couldn't live in New York City on that. He even had to pick up two additional jobs.

Whether the ownership likes it or not — they don't, by the way, they said the board game cafe employees unionizing would “flexible and open-door atmosphere we have tried to foster” — Hex & Co. unionized, and two other board game cafes followed suit.

If it works out for them, great. But when these cafes can't afford to keep their doors open, we'd better not hear any complaining about how no one was willing to pay them to teach board games.

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