Trader Joe’s Workers Unionize A Second Store With Minneapolis Victory

Two weeks ago, Trader Joe's United won an election in Massachusetts to become the grocery chain's first union. The group of Trader Joe's employees proved that the victory was not a one-off.

Workers at a Trader Joe's United store in Minneapolis voted 55 to 5 to join the union. The Minnesota workers want the chain to come to the negotiating table to hammer out a first contract.

The back-to-back wins could encourage more of the chain's workers to bargain collectively. Trader Joe's workers around the country have told organizers that they would like to be represented by a union.

Ahead of the vote, Sarah Beth said that pro-union workers were more confident about taking on the company.

We are talking to a lot of people about this movement. I believe it is just time.

Trader Joe's United isn't associated with a labor group. Lawyers have been helping the workers organize on their own. After the workers in Massachusetts went public with their campaign, the workers in Minneapolis became friends with them.

A moment of opportunity for the labor movement is reflected in the success of the group so far, like that of Starbucks Workers United and the Amazon Labor Union. The number of US workers who are members of a union has fallen from around one in three after World War II to around one in 10 today.

Trader Joe's has a week to contest the results. After the union won in Massachusetts, the company decided not to negotiate with Trader Joe's United and instead would use other contracts in the grocery industry as a framework.

The U.S. retail space has been hard for unions to organize. Starbucks is one of the first unions created by workers at other companies. The United Food and Commercial Workers union represents hundreds of thousands of store employees, but Trader Joe's was able to keep them out. The UFCW has petitioned for an election at Trader Joe's in Boulder, Colorado.

Many workers at Trader Joe's have complained that the company has grown stingier in recent years. The 401(k) contribution would be halved for workers with less than 10 years of service, a decision that many employees cited in their decision to try to unionize.

Premium pay for working Sundays and holidays will be offered by Trader Joe's soon after the vote in Massachusetts. When asked if the new provisions would apply to stores that had unionized, the company didn't reply.

Hannah said that the improvements were a response to the organizing that had been going on.

She said they were surprised to see they were willing to answer many of the questions they had been looking at.