A group of Massachusetts Trader Joe’s workers want to break from union

Employees at a Trader Joe’s in Hadley, Mass., have submitted a petition seeking a workplace election to remove the Trader Joe’s United union, an affiliate of the larger Service Employees International Union (SEIU). 

Trader Joe’s employee Les Stratford submitted the petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 1 in Boston behind free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.

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 co-workers vote against the Trader Joe’s United union, it will lose its bargaining power 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 requiring Trader Joe’s employees to pay dues or fees to keep their jobs. In Right to Work states, union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary. 

“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,” said Stratford in a press release from National Right to Work. “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.”

Related:National Labor Relations Board hears complaints from a Trader Joe's store

Trader Joe’s United had not responded to a request for comment in time for publication.

Trader Joe’s employees who back the union decertification effort have commented frequently on the tactics that SEIU-backed agents used to establish the union in the workplace. 

Michael Alcorn, a worker at the Hadley 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 solicit “cards” that are later counted as votes for the union.

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.”