Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle 2016 Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle

Employees at San Francisco’s world-renowned Tartine Bakery announced their intent to unionize Thursday morning, a move that is extremely rare in the restaurant industry.

They want better pay and a voice in a company that they say is becoming increasingly corporate. Though Tartine began as a standalone bakery in the Mission District in 2002, it now has 10 cafes and restaurants across the Bay Area, Los Angeles and South Korea and recently moved its headquarters to Los Angeles.

With so much growth, Tartine Bakery barista Pat Thomas said he wishes there was more opportunity for employees at established locations.

“If you want to pursue baking as a career, you’d like to think Tartine would be the place to end up,” he said. “But a lot of people treat it as a steppingstone, a resume builder, because working there is not sustainable.”

That’s why he and Tartine employees at four Bay Area locations — the original Tartine Bakery, Tartine Manufactory, Tartine in the Inner Sunset and Tartine in Berkeley — began organizing 10 months ago to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, the same union that Anchor Brewing workers joined last year. There are more than 200 employees at the four locations, who — if Tartine management declines to quickly recognize the union — intend to hold an election in four to six weeks.

Tartine management did not respond to requests for comment.

The efforts at Tartine are very uncommon: Only 1.3% of the 12 million people who work in American restaurants are union members, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Workers believe this is the first unionization effort at a major San Francisco restaurant in decades, though the city used to be a hot spot for restaurant unions.

Successful recent strikes from Oakland teachers and San Francisco hotel workers have brought more attention to unions, said Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center. At the same time, inequality and labor have been dominating the political conversation in California.

“You’ve got high cost of living here and a fairly tight labor market, which potentially gives workers some bargaining power,” Jacobs said. “These are definitely strong conditions for worker organizing.”

The unionization at San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Co. last year inspired Tartine employees to try organizing themselves. Anchor was purchased by Tokyo’s Sapporo Holdings in 2017, driving concerns about corporatization among Anchor employees.

Since opening almost two decades ago on Guerrero Street, the original Tartine Bakery has earned international acclaim and a James Beard Foundation Award that named owners Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson the best pastry chefs in the country. The lines outside the Mission District bakery haven’t ceased.

Expansion efforts went into overdrive after Tartine’s ambitious, multifaceted San Francisco restaurant Tartine Manufactory opened in 2016. There are now five locations in the Bay Area, four in South Korea and one in Los Angeles, with spaces secured for two more. There’s also a coffee roasting business, Coffee Manufactory, based in Oakland. In Southern California, a wholesale operation supplies Los Angeles Whole Foods stores — it’s what remains of Tartine’s mammoth, 40,000-square-foot restaurant complex in downtown Los Angeles that closed in December after less than a year.

Workers pointed to the hiring of a Los Angeles team of executives as a sign of Tartine’s evolution into a global brand. Those executives include Chief Operating Officer Christopher Jordan, who hails from Starbucks and Verve Coffee Roasters, and managing partner Bill Chait, who has operated dozens of restaurants in Los Angeles.

“The soul of the neighborhood bakery doesn’t exist as much anymore,” said Tartine Manufactory barista Emily Haddad. “It’s really losing its San Francisco homegrown vibe.”

Photo: Justin Phillips / The Chronicle 2019

While workers wouldn’t divulge exactly how many support joining a union, they said they have a clear majority. Agustin Ramirez, an organizer with ILWU, said the union recommends getting at least 70% of workers on board before declaring their intent to unionize to ensure they have the votes should Tartine management decline to recognize the union effort.

If that’s the case, workers plan to file for an election with the National Labor Relations Board on Friday. In four to six weeks, each individual Tartine location would then hold an election. If a majority of workers vote to join, then they’ll elect a bargaining committee to negotiate a contract with Tartine.

The employees at Tartine Manufactory at SFO are already unionized with other airport workers.

The Chronicle interviewed seven Tartine workers who support unionization. They were hesitant to say exactly what they want in a new contract before a bargaining committee forms, but they all agreed on fighting for what they consider to be a living wage.

They said most Tartine employees earn minimum wage — $15 in San Francisco — which results in some commuting to the city from as far as Stockton because they can’t afford to live closer. Others have second jobs, or even third jobs.

“In San Francisco, many of us are one or two missed paychecks away from being homeless,” Haddad said. “You should be able to work at a restaurant as established as Tartine and have that be your only job.”

Workers also discussed wanting job security, transparency, paid vacation time and more predictable schedules, plus a structured performance review process with the potential for raises.

Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle 2016

Though union restaurants are rare today, if Tartine workers organized, it would mark a new chapter in a long history of unionized independent restaurants in San Francisco. In the 1980s, there were more than 70 in the city, according to Jacobs. But the restaurant and hotel workers union that represented them — now known as Local 2 — lost a key battle over wages after a long strike. That led to some restaurants leaving the union and leaders deciding to focus on hotels.

“The small number of union restaurants that are not in hotels are really legacies from another time,” Jacobs said, citing John’s Grill, Scoma’s Restaurant and Tommy’s Joynt as a few of San Francisco’s last remaining examples.

While there seems to be rising interest in unions, that doesn’t necessarily result in more actual unionizing, said Teófilo Reyes, research director at restaurant worker advocacy nonprofit Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. The restaurant industry is a particularly challenging place to pull it off because of the high turnover rate. The day-to-day environment also involves a lot of interaction between management and workers, which means there are many opportunities for an employer to spread an anti-union message, Reyes said.

That’s what happened at New Orleans wine bar Bacchanal. Workers there organized as far as Tartine’s have so far — a majority signed a letter announcing their intent to join a union. But, according to news reports, restaurant management strategically dissuaded employees, who ultimately called off the election.

“In order for restaurant workers to want to unionize, they’d have to see some high-profile successful unionization efforts,” Reyes said. “And that’s something you never really see.”

The employees at Tartine hope to reverse the trend and spark change at other Bay Area restaurants.

“People who work in the service industry should be recognized as serious workers,” said Regen Williams, lead pastry cook at Tartine in the Sunset. “We deserve as many rights as any tech worker.”

Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker