Workers at a Trader Joe’s store in Hadley, Massachusetts, decided to unionise, joining a wave of labour organising that has swept businesses like Amazon, Apple, and Starbucks.
As a result, Trader Joe’s will soon have its first union site.
Trader Joe’s United, an independent union unconnected to a larger labour organisation, was approved by a vote of 45 to 31 workers.
The union posted on Twitter, “We are immensely proud of the work we have done together to win this union election, but winning is just the beginning.”
On August 11 and 12, a second union election is scheduled for a Trader Joe’s in Minneapolis, and on Tuesday, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 submitted a petition for a union election at a location in Boulder, Colorado.
The company’s compensation and benefits package, according to a Trader Joe’s spokeswoman, are “among the best in the supermarket business,” and the company is “willing to immediately begin conversations with union representatives for the employees at this store to negotiate a contract.”
“We are willing to use any current union contract for a multi-state grocery chain with stores in the area, selected by the union representatives, as a template to negotiate a new structure for the employees in this store,” Trader Joe’s said in a statement.
This includes pay, retirement, health care, and working conditions like scheduling and job flexibility.
Although the spokesman did not say whether the corporation would object, it has seven days to do so.
The workers at Trader Joe’s who spearheaded the labour movement claimed inspiration from Starbucks, where more than 200 stores chose to unionise over adamant company resistance.
Workers have also started organising campaigns at a number of Apple and Amazon locations.
The National Labor Relations Board has received more petitions for union elections so far this year than it did the entire previous year, according to the NLRB.