Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 8/16/2022
HADLEY – The Trader Joe’s store in Hadley made national headlines after becoming the company’s first unionized store on July 28 in a 45-31 vote according to the National Labor Relations Board.
The move spurred other stores to look into unionizing including a Minneapolis store which voted for a union on Aug. 12.
Skyler Lloyd has worked for Trader Joe’s for over three years and has been a member of the union’s organizing committee since May after initial discussions started early this year. Lloyd said that employees, known as crew members, have dealt with the chipping away of benefits and policies “where the company has just put their bottom line over the well being of the workers,” according to Lloyd.
Lloyd alleged the company hired a “premier law firm” for union-busting in Littler Mendelson. Leading up to the vote, managers had individual conversations with each crew member in what Lloyd said was an attempt to dissuade and intimidate pro-union votes.
“The company definitely launched a union-busting campaign,” Lloyd said. “Their strategy was to have one-on-one meetings with crew members and management. The managers would come and basically ask the individual worker to step outside and talk to them. They would have these one-on-one meetings where they’re trying to scare people away from voting for the union. A lot of what they were saying was misleading, some just genuinely false and some illegal including offering that if they join a union, the company is not going to be able to contribute to their retirement account for example. That’s just not true and illegal.”
Lloyd said the mood at work has been stressful, especially with threats from management that “call into question the stability that we all rely on at work.” Lloyd said union organizers were prepared for the law firm and conversations with management and tried to debunk any misinformation told to crew members.
“All of this is sort of like an established playbook that companies use to dissuade people from voting for a union, so we were able to anticipate a lot of it,” Lloyd said.
After a request for comment regarding the allegations levied by Lloyd, Trader Joe’s spokesperson Nakia Rohde responded with a company press release. According to the release, Trader Joe’s offers crew members “a package of pay, benefits and working conditions that is among the best in the grocery business.” The release affirms that the company is prepared to discuss contract negotiations with the union immediately.
Lloyd said that having the union recognized by the company is a step in the right direction as crew members will begin meetings with all workers at the Hadley store to determine their priorities for negotiations.
“Our goal is to ultimately have a contract for our employment that has our priorities put forward,” Lloyd said. “That’s going to be a process of negotiation with the company and we hope to come together, figure out the things that we all agree need to change, need to improve about our jobs and also things that we love about our jobs that we hope to put in writing and set so they can’t just be changed at the whim of the company which is sort of how it’s been going.”
Lloyd added that the union members would happily be a resource for any other stores looking into unionizing and said he’s extremely proud of his coworkers for working and navigating the situation “under a ton of pressure.”
“We know what it’s like to work at Trader Joe’s and I think that we deserve a voice in determining the terms of our employment and we’re excited to do that effectively,” Lloyd said.