Three longtime employees who were fired by Spot Coffee said they were illegally terminated for their involvement in unionization efforts. Their co-workers staged a protest Wednesday in hopes of getting them reinstated, and vowed to keep fighting for workers' rights.

Spot Coffee Chief Executive Officer Anton Ayoub, in an email response Wednesday to The Buffalo News, said the company will respond to the allegations after the July 4 holiday. In a tweet posted Wednesday, the company referred to the allegations of two employees and a manager being fired as "untrue."

Phoenix Cerny, who worked at the company's Elmwood Avenue store, and Cerny's roommate Philip Kneitinger, who worked at the Hertel Avenue location, had both been with the company for more than four years without incident when they received notice of their termination, they said.

Cerny received an apologetic phone call from an assistant manager saying she was instructed by the COO to let Cerny go. She wasn't given a reason, she said, but she assumed the manager had "heard the murmurings about the union stuff," according to Cerny.