Trader Joe’s employee testified before U.S. House in May about underhanded union tactics and divisive organizing campaign
Hadley, MA (August 12, 2024) – Employees at the Hadley, MA, location of grocery chain Trader Joe’s have submitted a petition seeking a workplace election to remove the Trader Joe’s United union, an affiliate of the large Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Trader Joe’s employee Les Stratford submitted the petition to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 1 in Boston with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
The NLRB is the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal labor law, which includes administering elections to install (or “certify”) and remove (or “decertify”) unions. Stratford’s decertification petition contains employee signatures well over the 30% threshold needed to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules. If a majority of Stratford’s coworkers vote against the Trader Joe’s United union, it will lose its bargaining powers in the workplace.
Because Massachusetts lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, SEIU union officials have the legal privilege to enforce contracts that require Trader Joe’s employees to pay dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs. In Right to Work states, in contrast, union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary. A successful decertification vote strips union officials of their monopoly bargaining and forced-dues powers.
“Officials of this union have sowed division and smeared both our workplace and anyone who dissents from the union’s agenda pretty much from the time the campaign began to unionize the store,” commented Stratford. “This isn’t what I believe the majority of my coworkers want or deserve, and despite the union’s pushback on this effort, we will fight to ensure that our colleagues can exercise their right to vote on whether we want to be represented by this union.”
Employees Widely Report Deceptive and Divisive Tactics by Union Bosses
Trader Joe’s employees who back the union decertification effort have commented frequently on the controversial and deceptive tactics that SEIU-backed agents used to establish the union in the workplace. Michael Alcorn, a worker at the Hadley, MA, store, testified before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce in May that union organizers tried to foist union control of the workplace through “card check” – a process that bypasses the NLRB’s secret ballot election system and lets union officials aggressively solicit “cards” that are later counted as votes for the union – and refused to meet or even talk with workers who were skeptical of the union’s agenda.
Alcorn reported to the Committee that the union’s campaign also included “inaccurate and incomplete press releases creating false narratives about our workplace, to promote [union officials’] own agenda and personal vendettas” and a general message that “if [employees] don’t vote for the union, they don’t care about their coworkers.” Stratford, the Trader Joe’s employee who filed the petition, described the situation similarly, saying that “immediately the workplace dynamic became a ‘two-side’ thing where if you weren’t going to put a [union] pin on…then you were not going to be acknowledged.”
Biden-Harris NLRB Just Finalized Rule Making It Harder for Workers to Eject Unwanted Unions
The Hadley Trader Joe’s workers’ efforts come as the Biden-Harris NLRB has announced a final rule which will make it much harder for rank-and-file workers to exercise their right to vote out union officials they oppose, including by letting union officials prevent decertification votes from going forward by filing unverified “blocking charges” alleging employer interference. While the Trader Joe’s employees’ petition will be unaffected by the rule change, the new policy will likely quash or substantially delay similar efforts in the future.
“The situation at the Hadley, MA, Trader Joe’s store shows exactly why workers’ right to vote to remove a union they oppose must be protected,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “During a union campaign, union officials often employ aggressive tactics and ‘us vs. them’ or hate-the-boss rhetoric that cause division and prioritize union bosses’ agenda over workers’ freedoms and individual choices. Workers deserve an opportunity to petition for a vote to oust a union that they feel has unfairly ascended to power or simply isn’t serving workers’ interests.”
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.
