Trader Joe’s workers in New York City and California seek to join the union

Workers at Trader Joe’s stores in New York City and Oakland, California, on Wednesday filed to join the independent Trader Joe’s United union, organizers announced.

If workers in both locations voice their approval, the stores will join ones in Hadley, Massachusetts, and Minneapolis that voted to unionize last summer.

In January, employees at a Trader Joe’s grocery store in Louisville, Kentucky, voted 48-36 to join Trader Joe’s United. But that vote remains in limbo after the Monrovia, California-based grocery retailer filed an objection with the National Labor Relations Board. Hearings on that complaint are being held this week, the union said.

The latest unionization activity is significant because Trader Joe’s has not yet unionized in New York City or California, the union said.

In October, workers at a Brooklyn Trader Joe’s rejected the union by a vote of 94-66 against unionization.

“A winning union vote would make the Oakland store the first unionized Trader Joe’s in California, where the company was founded,” the union noted. “The New York City stores are reputed to be some of the most profitable and popular in the chain.”

On Wednesday, Trader Joe’s United posted videos to Twitter of grocery workers at Essex Crossing in New York City and those in Oakland “Marching on the Boss” to deliver letters of intent to join the union.

Workers in New York City said they are fighting for better training, increased workplace safety, clear and consistent communication, and better wages and benefits.

At its previously unionized stores, Trader Joe’s United has fought for a starting hourly wage of $30 (with adjustments for seniority), as we as cost-of-living and annual progression increases, free health care, paid time off and retirement contributions.

“As a full-time graduate student paying for tuition and rent in the notoriously expensive Bay Area, wage transparency is extremely important to me,” Kaitlyn Custer, who has worked for Trader Joe’s for six years, said in a statement provided by the union. “Within my past few years at TJs, I have experienced conflicting messages from management about my expected hourly rate upon transferring stores; the upsetting realization I was making a quarter more than a new hire—after working for the company for six years; and a general lack of transparency around wage adjustments.”

Last month, Trader Joe’s filed a complaint against the union with the NLRB, accusing the group of bad-faith bargaining because it was requiring approval from workers in Hadley and Louisville before reaching tentative agreements for the Minneapolis store, among other issues. Trader Joe’s also objected to the union vote in Louisville, saying that employees there were subject to “an atmosphere of fear and coercion” that interfered with a fair vote.

Trader Joe’s opened its first store in 1967 and now operates more than 500 locations around the country.