NLRB files unfair labor practices complaint against Trader Joe’s

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint against Trader Joe’s late last week, alleging that the grocer retaliated against workers who were organizing a union, threatening them with frozen wages and more.

The complaint, filed by NLRB prosecutors on Friday, centers on activities last year at Trader Joe’s store in Hadley, Massachusetts. In July 2022, the Hadley location became the grocer’s first union shop after workers there voted to join the independent Trader Joe’s United union.

Among the allegations in the complaint: Employees who wore pins with union insignia while working at the Hadley Trader Joe’s were sent home or received written warnings; workers were interrogated about their plans to start a union; employees were told their wages would be frozen if they joined the union; employees were told their “working conditions would worsen” and that they might not receive raises or retirement benefits if they joined the union; and workers were forced to attend “captive-audience meetings” to hear Trader Joe’s position on union activity.

Trader Joe’s management also misrepresented the union, the complaint said, posting “false and misleading” information in the Hadley breakroom and on its internal employee website about bargaining updates.

Trader Joe’s did not respond to a WGB request to comment Monday about the complaint.

Trader Joe’s United, which has since won three more union votes around the country, called the NLRB complaint against the grocer a validation of its labor fight.

“It’s incredibly vindicating to receive this NLRB complaint,” Trader Joe’s United Communications Director and longtime Hadley employee Maeg Yosef said in a statement to WGB. “It confirms what we’ve known from the beginning: that our employer, Trader Joe’s, has grossly violated our rights as workers and must be held accountable.”

The complaint asks Monrovia, California-based Trader Joe’s to retract its “misleading and false statements” about the union and post a notice to all employees at its 543 stores nationwide.

Trader Joe’s must file a response to the NLRB complaint by July 21. A hearing on the matter has been set for October 17 in Hartford, Connecticut.

Trader Joe’s workers in Minneapolis voted to join the union last summer, a couple of weeks after Hadley organizers won their election. In January, workers at a Trader Joe’s store in Louisville, Kentucky, voted to join the union. But the grocer filed an NLRB complaint against the election, saying workers there were subject to “an atmosphere of fear and coercion” that prevented a fair vote. Certification of that vote remains on hold. In April, workers at a Trader Joe’s in Oakland, California, voted in favor of unionizing, becoming the fourth store to do so.

“We will never stop fighting for our rights as workers and we look forward to the NLRB’s decisions on the many other charges we have filed,” Yosef said.