Trader Joe’s employees in western Massachusetts have applied for a union election as a sign that service industry workers have a strong interest in the union, even after successful votes in Starbucks, REI, and Amazon. .. If they win, they will establish the only union in Trader Joe’s. The union has more than 500 locations and 50,000 employees nationwide.
Submitting to the National Labor Relations Commission late Tuesday calls for an election involving about 85 employees forming an independent union, Trader Joe’s United, rather than partnering with an established trade union. This reflects an independent union created by Amazon Workers on Staten Island and a worker-led organization at Starbucks.
“Over the past few years, changes have happened without our consent,” said Maeg Yosef, an 18-year-old employee of the store, the leader of the union campaign. “We wanted to be in charge of the whole process to become our union, so we decided to be independent.”
Joseph said the union received support from more than 50 percent of store workers known as crew.
“We always welcome fair voting, and if more than 30% of our crew wants to vote, we’re ready to vote,” the company spokesman, hinting at NLRB’s election criteria. The person in charge, Nakia Rohde, said. “We are never interested in delaying the process.”
The company shared a similar statement with workers after announcing its intention to form a union in mid-May.
In explaining their decision, Yosef and four colleagues all mentioned changes that had been in the company for at least eight years and had become less profitable over time, as well as health and safety concerns. rice field. Expanded during a pandemic.
“This is probably the place where all this comes together,” said Tony Falco, another worker involved in the union campaign, alluding to Covid-19.
Falco said the store in Hadley took some reassuring steps during the first 12 to 15 months of the pandemic. Management has applied masking requirements and limits to the number of customers who can enter the store at one time. This allowed workers to take leave while continuing to have health insurance, giving them an additional “thank you” payment of $ 4 per hour.
However, Falco and colleagues said the vaccine was so widely available last year that it was too fast to roll back many of these measures, including additional charges, and stores have been in the past few weeks after the masking was loosened. He said he suffered from the outbreak of Covid.The store changed the mask obligation at various times and recently lifted it, in accordance with the policy of the local health committee. March..
Some employees were also angry that the company did not notify them that the state had passed a law requiring employers to provide it. Up to 5 days of paid leave For workers who missed work for Covid.
“It was valid for seven months, and they never announced it,” Yosef said. “I understood that at the end of December, at the beginning of January.”
A spokeswoman, Rohde, said the account was wrong, but four other employees who supported the union also said the company hadn’t told them about the policy.
Trader Joe’s has generally resisted unionization for many years, including the early days of the pandemic. In March 2020, CEO Dan Bane referred to “the barrage of current union activity directed at Trader Joe’s,” and union supporters said, “Now they drive their dissatisfaction. It’s a kind of wedge in our company that can be. “
The company’s reaction to the current campaign does not appear to be somewhat hostile, but union organizers have recently charged employees with unfair labor practices, such as asking them to remove the unfair labor practice.
Some employees said a broader problem underlies their frustration: more focus on revenue from niche outlets known for spoiling customers and treating employees generously. Seen as the evolution of the company into an industrial scale chain.
The company’s employee handbook encourages workers to provide a “great customer experience”. This is defined as “the customer’s feelings about the joy of shopping with us.” However, longtime employees say that privately held companies are gradually becoming stingy against workers.
For years, the company has provided extensive healthcare to part-timers. In the early 2010s, the company raised the average weekly time required for employees to qualify for full health insurance from about 20 to 30 hours, and for those who disqualified, instead reformed the federal health insurance system. I have notified you that you may be subject to. (The company recently lowered the threshold to 28 hours.)
“It was done under the guise,’You can get these plans, they’re the same plan,’ but they weren’t the same plan,” said Sarah, then manager of the Hadley store. Joseph said. He played a role and is now a frontline worker.
“I had to sit there individually with the crew saying you would lose your health insurance,” added Ms. Yosef, who is married to Maeg Yosef.
Retirement benefits follow a similar trajectory. At about the same time, Trader Joe’s reduced retirement contributions from approximately 15% to 10% of employee income for employees over the age of 30. Starting with last year’s benefits, the company has once again reduced the proportion of many workers whose contribution has dropped to 5%. The company no longer specifies a set amount.
A spokeswoman, Rohde, said the change was part of a response to many workers’ indications that they would prefer bonuses to retirement contributions.
Workers, the company’s determination to provide an intimate shopping experience, is often theirs in the rapid growth of business over the last decade, and as the business revives again due to the lifting of pandemic restrictions. He said it was brought in at a cost.
For example, Trader Joe’s does not have a conveyor belt in the checkout line and tells the cashier to reach for the customer’s cart or basket and unload the item. This may seem to personalize the service, but it usually costs a physical sacrifice to a worker who bends hundreds of times or more during a shift.
(The company asks workers to perform different tasks all day long, so they don’t always attract customers.)
Maeg Yosef and her colleagues began discussing union campaigns during the winter, angry at not announcing changes to state-mandated paid leave and severance benefits, and were inspired by the success of the union elections at Starbucks. Some people got a ration. Amazon and REI.
Their union campaign may also benefit from the same leverage that workers in those companies enjoyed as a result of a relatively tight employment market.
“People just keep leaving — I know they want to hire people now,” Maeg Yosef said. “It’s hard to keep people.”