Trader Joe’s workers in New York City may be getting a second chance at forming a union after their election failed with a tied vote earlier this year, thanks to a groundbreaking new rule handed down by federal labor officials last week. Trader Joe’s United, the independent union that has unionized four Trader Joe’s locations across the country so far, filed a request for a bargaining order with…
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Trader Joe’s workers in Minneapolis won their union election by a landslide on Friday, becoming the second location of the popular grocery chain to form a union just over two weeks after workers voted to form the chain’s first.
Workers won their union 55 to 5 on Friday, or with over 90 percent of the vote. They join workers in Hadley, Massachusetts, in forming a union with the newly formed Trader Joe’s United, an independent union modeled in part after Amazon Labor Union.
The workers also join the wave of other unionizations at major retailers that have swept the country in recent months, including at Starbucks, Apple, and more. Similarly to those campaigns, Trader Joe’s workers’ union effort has the potential to rapidly spread; the workers say that they’ve been talking about unionizing with Trader Joe’s employees at locations across the country. The fact that Trader Joe’s United has experienced such success as an independent union is groundbreaking.
The union rejoiced after the vote, saying that it was a hard-fought effort.
“Our landslide victory shows just how strongly we believe that Crew members from stores across the country can work together to gain the pay, benefits and working conditions we deserve,” the union wrote in a statement. “We’ve had conversations in coffee shops, backyards, and living rooms, outside of the store on nights after long shifts, and on walks by the Mississippi River.”
“Together, we’ve asked really basic questions, like, what is a union? And harder questions, like what, in granular and concrete terms, is our long term vision for Trader Joe’s workers?” the union continued. “This story, our story, where everyday folks come together in break rooms and at rallies and form brand new unions and struggle together … will continue to be told, because we will continue to work together for a more equitable future.”
Trader Joe’s says that it is “concerned” about the unionization but is “prepared to immediately begin discussions with their collective bargaining representative to negotiate a contract.”
Minneapolis workers say that safety concerns are part of why they organized to form a union — Vice reported on an incident where one of the workers discovered someone who was shot in the head in the vestibule of their store, but management didn’t address the issue or shut down the store.
Workers say that their requests over the years for provisions like safety reforms and better pay and health care benefits “have really gotten nowhere” with management. The firing of Kimberly Thompson, a 13-year veteran of the store, ultimately pushed workers to go public with their union campaign in June.
Since then, workers say they’ve faced union busting from the company, which, like Starbucks, has hired notorious union-buster Littler Mendelson in response to the union effort. Late last month, just before the Hadley election, the company announced that it was giving workers across the country a $10 an hour pay bump on Sundays and holidays — but only in stores that weren’t publicly unionizing.
The company claimed that it was following federal labor laws in announcing the new policy, but workers were skeptical. Indeed, the company’s reasoning was similar to that of Starbucks, which announced a raise only for workers in stores that weren’t unionizing in May. Starbucks also claimed that the policy change fell in line with federal labor laws, but labor experts say that it is illegal to purposely exclude unionizing stores from a wage raise.
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Workers for athleisure company Lululemon Athletica in Washington, D.C., have filed to unionize, seeking to become the first of the company’s 315 U.S. locations to form a union.
On Wednesday, workers filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to cover the 33-person unit, as first reported by Bloomberg. According to the NLRB filing, they are filing under the name of the “Association of Concerted Educators.” This is likely due to the fact that workers in sales positions in Lululemon’s brick and mortar stores are referred to as “educators” by the company.
On the union’s Twitter, the Georgetown workers say that the company’s stated “core values,” including things like entrepreneurship, honesty, courage, connection and inclusion, are part of what inspired them to organize.
“We are courageous, we are demanding more,” the union wrote. “More collaboration. More transparency. More pay transparency. More equitable pay structures.”
“We show up ready to truly connect with our guests and truly create fun and memorable experience [sic]. We seek to uphold our value of inclusion in everything we do,” the union continued. “These are the reasons we are collectively saying: Recognize our union.”
Lululemon workers at all levels of the company have reported having to work under abusive conditions in recent years. Workers in their brick and mortar stores have said that there is a “cultlike” culture of “toxic positivity” within the company, despite the fact that the company touts being inclusive. Workers are paid $15 or $17 an hour, depending on the area, after the company announced a pay bump because they were struggling to maintain staffing.
One worker told Insider in 2021 that, partially because the company’s corporate staff was largely white and able-bodied, non-white workers often felt subjugated or left out. One Asian American worker who formerly worked in a Minnesota location said that her manager would sometimes insinuate that the non-white workers at the store weren’t as enthusiastic as their white counterparts. Lululemon has denied these claims.
Workers at other levels of the company have also reported abusive working conditions. In 2019, workers in Bangladesh reported being verbally and physically abused by management for breaking rules while only being paid about $86 a month — less than the cost of a typical pair of leggings from the brand. The company said that it was investigating the allegations after they were uncovered by The Guardian, but it’s unclear if any changes have come out of that investigation.
Meanwhile, the company’s corporate culture has also been problematic. In 2018, Racked reported that the company’s outgoing CEO Laurent Potdevin had fostered a “boy’s club” culture at the company; some workers said that only men or Potdevin’s favorite employees were able to move up in the company.
If the Georgetown workers succeed in forming a union, it would be another success in a wave of retail unionizations that have swept the country over the past months.
Workers at companies like Starbucks have had enormous success unionizing and growing their movement across the country, and the momentum doesn’t seem to be fizzling out any time soon. Another retail union, Trader Joe’s United, has marked a small win this week as a second store that’s filed to unionize with the group has received a union date. The Minneapolis workers will vote next month to unionize, while the Hadley, Massachusetts, workers will be voting next week.
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Trader Joe’s workers in Massachusetts recently announced that they’ve gotten an official union election date — a vote that could produce the company’s first-ever union.
The in-person election for the workers in Hadley, Massachusetts, is scheduled for July 27 and 28, Trader Joe’s United announced. This means that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has certified that at least 30 percent of workers have signed union cards — though workers say that they have the support of over half of the about 81-person unit, which is enough to win the election.
“We are thrilled to finally have an election date, and we can’t wait to see the final vote count,” Trader Joe’s United organizer Tony Falco said in a press release.
Like Amazon Labor Union, which produced Amazon’s first-ever union, the Trader Joe’s employees are seeking to form an independent union, with no affiliation to established labor unions. Although Trader Joe’s said in a statement that the union is “[Service Employees International Union]-backed,” per the Daily Hampshire Gazette, union leaders have said that the company’s claim is false.
Amazon Labor Union’s strategy of forming a union from scratch has shaken up traditional labor organizers’ views of how to achieve major wins within the labor movement. Trader Joe’s United may see similar success, as a fresh generation of labor organizers are repeatedly notching wins at a time when union membership is declining and some established unions, like the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), are spending less on organizing.
Indeed, there is already evidence that the Trader Joe’s Union may be spreading across the country. Workers at a Trader Joe’s in Minneapolis filed to form a union last week. The location is the second in Trader Joe’s United’s campaign to file for unionization.
Workers at Trader Joe’s have complaints about their workplaces that are similar to those of unionizing workers at places like Apple, Starbucks and REI. While the company has painted itself as a progressive organization that prioritizes the wants and needs of its employees, workers say that their relationship with management has been steadily eroding as the company reduces their benefits and pay and increasingly views the workers as disposable. This sentiment especially increased during the pandemic, workers say.
“Over time, Trader Joe’s has slashed benefits, retirement benefits in particular,” Minneapolis Trader Joe’s worker Sarah Beth Ryther told More Perfect Union. Ten years ago, the company offered a 15 percent guaranteed retirement contribution, but that benefit has been slashed to zero — what the company calls a “discretionary contribution” — which Ryther said “leav[es] employees with absolutely no idea how much they’re going to be receiving.”
Workers in both Hadley and Minneapolis say that the company has been harshly retaliating against pro-union workers. The union has filed several unfair labor practice charges against the company over the Hadley unionization effort, saying that the company sent a worker home for wearing a union pin and has barred workers from discussing their wages.
Meanwhile, workers in Minneapolis say that the company recently fired a pro-union employee who had worked for the company for 13 years, claiming that the employee had a “negative impact” on other workers.
The campaign comes as workers at other companies are winning unions in spite of harsh union-busting tactics. Last week, REI workers in Berkeley, California, officially kicked off their union campaign and created a petition asking REI to recognize their union. Though the California workers are seeking to join a different union, the petition filing comes on the heels of a successful union drive in New York, where REI workers voted to form a union in March.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.