Following the recent trend of service workers organized by companies such as Starbucks, Apple and Amazon, Trader Joe’s employees in Hadley, Massachusetts voted for the union on Thursday. It is the only one of the company’s more than 500 stores with a formal union.
According to the National Labor Relations Commission, which oversaw the election, the vote was 45-31.
The union, known as Trader Joe’s United, said in a statement, “Since the launch of the campaign, the majority of the crew has been enthusiastic about the union, despite the company’s best efforts to ruin us. The majority did not fluctuate. ” ..
It’s unclear if the Union campaign will spread rapidly to other Trader Joe’s stores. The Starbucks campaign has voted Union for more than 200 company-owned locations since December. But supermarket chains will soon face at least one more union vote — Minneapolis store Next month — and workers in a Colorado store Submitted an election petition this week.
The company said in a statement that it was ready to start discussions soon. Its wages, profits and working conditions suggested that the union’s grocery workers were already better than they would normally receive, adding: As a template for negotiating new structures for employees of this store. “
The store is located approximately 20 miles north of Springfield in western Massachusetts. Number of small universities University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Read more about organized labor in the United States
Proponents of the Trader Joe’s union, which is not affiliated with an established trade union, cited a variety of reasons for deciding to organize, including health care and severance benefits, health and safety issues that have become less generous in the last few years. rice field.
Some commented that they were encouraged by the company’s first response to a pandemic, including enforcement of masking requirements, restrictions on the number of customers in stores, and a temporary increase of $ 4 per hour. These measures were reverted too soon when the vaccine became widely available last year.
Many workers in the store became ill with Covid-19 this spring due to reduced mask wear.Local health committee has lifted masking obligations March..
When workers applied for a union election last month, the company welcomed a fair vote and said it was “not interested in delaying the process at all.” However, the company tended to resist efforts to form unions, including the first pandemic attempt.
At the time, the company’s CEO, Dan Bain, quoted “the current barrage of union activity towards Trader Joe’s,” and union supporters said, “Now is the moment they can create.” I clearly believe in it. ” Some kind of wedge in our company that they can drive dissatisfaction with. “
Workers said that over the past few weeks, two senior company executives had been in the store on a regular basis and met with employees in small groups on a one-on-one basis, reducing the profits earned by the workers or with the manager. Suggested that there may be less cooperation. Unionization.
“It’s a common practice among our leadership teams to talk to the crew,” Trader Joe’s spokeswoman Nakiarode said in an email when the company was calling an employee. rice field.
Maeg Yosef, a longtime employee and leader of the union campaign, said at a recent meeting she attended that one of the store managers and senior officials explicitly asked workers to vote against them.
Joseph said the idea that unions would make it difficult for workers to work with management is “ironic because we are unions.” The union is entirely run by a clerk, so there is no external labor organization that can insert itself between the two.
Joseph and other workers discussed organizing last winter as they said they were frustrated that the company did not inform them of state law requiring paid leave due to Covid-related absenteeism. started. (Spokeswoman Rohde said he challenged the account without specifying which part he disagreed with.)
Tony Falco, a supporter and longtime employee of the union, predicted that he and his colleagues would have to fight for the contract, but said the union’s victory gave him hope. “Ultimately, this will be the first step in making this sustainable for my life and colleagues,” Falco said.
