Half Price Books union keeps growing as workers in Apple Valley organize

July 20, 2026 by
Workers with fists raised outside a Half Price Books store

Workers at the Half Price Books in Apple Valley celebrate their successful union election. (UFCW photo)

The Twin Cities area has its fifth union bookstore, after workers at the Half Price Books in Apple Valley voted earlier this month to organize with United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 663.

Workers at the company’s stores in St. Louis Park, Coon Rapids, St. Paul and Roseville organized in 2021, won their union elections in 2022, and ratified their first contract in 2024. UFCW Local 1189 represents workers at the St. Paul and Roseville stores.

The new, 15-person bargaining unit in Apple Valley will look to build on gains made by union members at the other locations, bookseller Drew Schmidt said. That includes guardrails for the employer’s use of artificial intelligence in the workplace.

“Half Price Books is attempting to iron out the individuality that shapes our community by standardizing our roles and incorporating AI in our workplace,” Schmidt said. “Unionizing is our way of encouraging Half Price Books to correct its course.”

Apple Valley workers also hope to bargain for higher wages and better staffing in their store, which sees steady foot traffic despite being the smallest Half Price Books outlet in the area, bookseller Katelyn Anderson said.

“We’re fairly busy and have much more limited space,” she said. “I feel like sometimes we don’t have enough people to cover how busy our store is.”

Meanwhile, workers’ wages aren’t keeping up with the rising cost of living, and Anderson said the pay does not reflect the level of expertise she and her co-workers must maintain. Unlike most other retail jobs, Half Price Books workers make cash offers to people looking to sell their books, albums or other materials.

“It’s really hard to kind of feel comfortable in this job with how much work we’re asked to do for the wages that we get,” Anderson said.

“I love this job. It’s cool to see the stuff that comes in and be able to help people find materials that they’re excited and passionate about. It’s amazing, but it does kind of feel defeating because they’re just not really livable wages anymore.”

Apple Valley workers voted 10-5 in favor of unionizing. The National Labor Relations Board certified the election results July 8.

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Boycott of REI’s anniversary sale begins today

May 15, 2026 by

Over 70,000 REI Co-op members have pledged to boycott the outdoors retailer’s anniversary sale, which runs today through May 25, in a show of solidarity with workers at 11 unionized stores across the country, including one in Maple Grove.

REI Union members voted in March to authorize a boycott of the co-op’s largest event of the year and immediately began appealing to shoppers for support. (Take the boycott pledge.)

Workers say the boycott is a response to REI’s decision in February to declare bargaining at an impasse and implement the economic terms of its last, best and final offer, which over 98% of union members voted down in January.

The imposed terms cut benefits, starting wages and raises for many union members. The REI Union’s bargaining team, which brings together members of the Retail, Wholesale and Depart-ment Store Union (RWDSU) and six United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) locals, have called the move union-busting – and illegal.

Jacob Lish, a sales specialist at the Maple Grove store who represents UFCW Local 663 on the nationwide bargaining team, noted that REI implemented only the punitive economic terms of its final offer, not tentative agreements reached earlier in talks that introduced new rights for union workers.

“It’s really important for us that REI hears that its members don’t support the union-busting they’ve been trying to do this whole time,” Lish said.

Union members are hoping the anniversary-event boycott delivers just that message.

In addition to co-opmembers who have taken the boycott pledge, the nation’s largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, has endorsed the boycott, adding REI to its “do-not-buy” list.

“Their bottom (line) is what they care about at the bargaining table,” Lish said “Even our most modest asks are too expensive; they tell us they can’t afford it.

“So by asking members to withhold their money for those 15 days, we think, is really going to impact REI – and hopefully drive them back to the table to reach an agreement with us.”

Union negotiators say they were “within inches” of a tentative agreement with REI before talks broke down. Management, they say, refused to guarantee union members wages on the same level as their non-union peers – a poison pill designed to thwart future organizing.

More recently, REI has demanded union members accept non-disparagement language in their contracts that would prohibit speaking out publicly against the company.

“REI has refused to offer us a fair contract, despite our willingness to compromise, and instead has insisted on provisions that would prevent more workers from joining the REI Union and that would ban us from speaking out,” Alex Pollitt, a worker at the REI in Bellingham, Wash., said in a statement. “Their anti-union stance is deeply incompatible with the values REI claims to profess.”

In June 2023, REI workers in Maple Grove voted 22-4 in favor of joining UFCW Local 663. After the vote, workers said they looked forward to winning a contract that addressed the rising cost of living, ensured consistent and adequate hours and improved staffing in their store.

Maple Grove was the seventh REI location to unionize. Organizing has continued, with workers at a twelfth store, in San Diego, scheduled to vote in a union election May 27-28.

Despite its reputation as a progressive-friendly retailer, REI has dug deep into the union-avoidance playbook since workers in New York unionized the first store in March 2022.

But the approach has not gone unnoticed by the co-op’s members.

When the REI union campaigned last year to elect two labor-friendly environmental leaders to the co-op’s board of directors, REI refused to put either on the ballot. The union then encouraged members to vote “no” on the co-op executives’ hand-picked candidates, who were running unopposed in the board election.

It worked, as over 115,000 members responded to the union’s appeal.

Two months later, REI agreed to establish a national bargaining structure with the union to settle contracts at its unionized stores – and to provide wage increases and bonuses that it had withheld from workers for the previous three years.

Now, REI members are being asked to deliver a similar message to executives by boycotting their co-op’s anniversary sale.

“We know REI really values themselves as a member co-op, or at least they say they do,” Lish said. “And we already know members support our goal of having some rights in the workplace and basic dignity as workers.

“With that really broad support from the membership, we think this boycott is going to be the most effective way to drive the response we are looking for.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Community, Organizing, Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

First union contract delivers gains for Mississippi Market workers

February 2, 2026 by

Members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189 voted last month to ratify a first contract with Mississippi Market after 11 months of bargaining with the St. Paul co-op grocer.

Union negotiators said the three-year contract delivers on the demands that sparked co-op workers’ organizing drive, including more agency in the workplace, economic gains and improvements to scheduling.

Clara Cady, produce buyer and lead who served on Local 1189’s bargaining committee, described the process as empowering.

“I feel like I have a voice in the workplace now, and I feel like my peers and my co-workers have a voice in the workplace,” Cady said. “That’s what we all deserve.”

The bargaining unit brings together over 150 workers at Mississippi Market’s three locations. They voted to form a union with Local 1189 in October 2024.

Bargaining began the following January, after the busy holiday season had passed – and after union members had an opportunity to participate in a survey of what they wanted to accomplish in a first contract. At the top of the list, Cady said, were fairer scheduling policies and more communication with management.

The new contract delivered on both.

A new labor-management committee (LMC) allows workers to bring their issues and ideas to management in a formal setting. Cady, who works at the co-op on Dale Street and Selby Avenue, said she envisions the committee as a place to work through ongoing safety concerns at her location.

“A lot of these concerns have been brought up to the market, and people feel like it’s fallen on deaf ears,” she said. “A lot of what, I think, people wanted was that feeling of being heard – and in return, hearing from management, ‘We’re going to address this, and here’s how.’

“Now, anyone can go and voice their concerns regarding whatever issues they may have, and it will be addressed in those LMC meetings.”

Workers also now get their schedules two weeks in advance, with changes allowed only if they are agreed to by staff. The contract includes protections for workers who are late or miss work during a severe weather event, and it bars managers from scheduling them to “clopen” – working consecutive closing and opening shifts.

The first contract improves union members’ wages and benefits, too. A restructured wage scale will deliver two raises per year – one on a worker’s hiring anniversary date and another on the anniversary of the contract ratification.

Co-op workers also won more paid time off, longer breaks and a more generous and flexible bereavement policy.

Local 1189 President Adam Evenstad credited Mississippi Market workers, who “trudged through a long, hard-fought process” but “never wavered” in their support for each other.

“Their solidarity has been inspiring,” he added.

For her part, Cady said she was proud of the new contract and glad she participated in the negotiations process, even if it meant stepping outside her comfort zone.

“I think a lot of us felt very out of our element sitting in a room across from a lawyer and all of these higher ups from your job,” Cady said. “But I learned so much about myself, and I feel really good about the way we were able to advocate for my peers and for my co-workers.”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

Filed Under: Labor Voices, Organizing Tagged With: , , , , ,

With support from shoppers, St. Paul co-op workers win landslide union election

October 11, 2024 by

(UFCW photo)

Mississippi Market Co-Op workers voted Wednesday to unionize. The organizing drive, which drew public support from several co-op members, brings together 158 workers at the grocer’s three St. Paul locations.

Workers voted 82-19 in favor of joining United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189, which represents retail workers at Cub Foods, Lunds & Byerlys, Kowalski’s and other unionized grocers in the Twin Cities’ east metro.

Rowan Garrigan, a cheese buyer at the co-op on West 7th Street, said the landslide result shows that Mississippi Market workers are eager for a seat at the table in decisions that affect their working conditions.

“The market does a lot of things right, but without the employees getting much of a voice, it’s easy for things to go wrong,” she said. “A union contract guarantees we get to be heard, that we get a say in things.”

The organizing drive moved quickly after co-op workers approached Local 1189 last January, shortly after a group of workers confronted management about its attendance policy. Garrigan said workers were being docked points for staying home when sick, even when they had a doctor’s note.

“We tried doing things the official way, through the market,” she said. “And we just weren’t being heard.”

Frustration boiled over after a round of restructuring earlier this year – in which the co-op eliminated its butcher shop and reassigned meatcutters to other jobs – took workers by surprise.

“There was no consultation, no conversation,” Garrigan said. “Essentially, all the butchers and people in the meat department got demoted, and we lost a lot of good people because they left to do the jobs they wanted to do.

“That really solidified the need for a union.”

Within months, a majority of Mississippi Market workers had signed union-authorization cards, and supporters marched on their store managers Sept. 19 to request voluntary recognition of the bargaining unit.

Management refused, leaving workers to petition the National Labor Relations Board for an election. But before that vote was even scheduled, workers succeeded in turning out member-owners to speak in support of the union during the co-op board of directors’ meeting Sept. 24.

Garrigan believes the show of support discouraged management from employing the kind of “aggressive” anti-union tactics it used during an unsuccessful organizing drive in 2018.

“I don’t know how it could have gone, but I do think that shoppers helped the market know they were being held accountable,” Garrigan said. “Coming in straight away with strong community support sent a wonderful message.”

Public support for unions is at a 60-year high point, according to Gallup, and the retail sector, in particular, has seen a wave of organizing activity, from Trader Joe’s and REI to Starbucks and Apple Stores.

Mississippi Market workers are among about 300 new members who have joined Local 1189 in the last decade, thanks to successful organizing drives at Half Price Books, a local climbing gym and in the medical cannabis industry.

Retail workers are looking to unions for stability, accountability from management and better compensation, Local 1189 President Adam Evenstad said.

“Most workers coming to us feel that they are undercompensated for the market, and they’re right,” Evenstad said. “Through negotiation they’ve been able to make great strides in wages and benefits, but a lot of the contracts we’ve bargained have created policies that will make their workday better in general and a process to sit down and work out day-to-day issues, too.”

Younger retail workers, Garrigan added, are tired of being taken for granted by their employers.

“If people aren’t going to listen, it’s important that we get involved and make them,” she said. “There are a lot of things the average person doesn’t have much control over, but unionizing was something I could do, something I could do to make my community better.”

Evenstad said he doesn’t think the wave of interest in retail unions has peaked. In fact, he hinted that Local 1189 may have more organizing drives to announce soon.

“We’re working on our next victories already, and it’s our expectation that those are going to come with this surge of young hungry workers that want more voice and more power in their workplace.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , ,

After trendsetting campaign, Twin Cities workers ratify first contracts with Half Price Books

June 12, 2024 by

Workers at Half Price Books in Roseville shut down the store during a two-day strike in July 2023. (UA file photo)

After an organizing drive that sparked similar efforts at bookstores across the country, workers at four Half Price Books stores in the Twin Cities ratified their first union contracts May 31, winning higher wages, job security and a voice on the job.

“Through the hard work of the entire bargaining committee, we have shown all of our co-workers the priceless value of having a union contract,” Aaron Kerr, a bookseller at the Roseville store, said. “This is going to help everyone at Half Price Books, and it will continue for decades to come.”

The contracts cover workers at Half Price Books locations in Roseville and St. Paul, who are members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1189, as well as workers at stores in Coon Rapids and St. Louis Park, who are members of UFCW Local 663.

Union members from all four stores bargained jointly with the company. Their new contracts include higher starting wages – up from $12 to $16 across the company since workers formed their union, according to a statement released by the UFCW.

The contracts also include job protections like a “just cause” discipline policy with grievance procedures, protections for transgender workers and new rules governing layoff and recall process, scheduling and job classifications.

But those gains didn’t come without a fight.

Beginning in November 2021, local bookstore workers voted to unionize in four separate National Labor Relations Board elections, after Half Price Books refused their petition for voluntary recognition.

Contract bargaining began in spring 2022, but momentum toward first contracts slowed when talks reached the economic phase. Workers began appealing to customers for support, wearing union pins and demonstrating outside their stores.

In July 2023, workers at all four stores walked off the job in a two-day strike over unfair labor practices, accusing the company of dragging out negotiations in an attempt to bust their union.

Local 1189 President Jim Gleb praised the “commitment and incredible solidarity” that Half Price Books workers showed during their organizing and contract campaigns.

“They have shown workers all around the country what can be achieved by standing up for your rights, and I am proud to have them as members of the UFCW,” Gleb said. “The labor community is lucky to count them among us.”

Indeed, since Minnesota workers formed the first union at a Half Price Books location, booksellers at stores in Indiana, Illinois, Kansas and California have unionized, too.

Minnesota workers were the second Half Price Books union to ratify first contracts, following UFCW members at the Half Price Books in Greenwood, Ind., who voted on their union contract a week earlier.

“Workers at Half Price Books have blazed a path that inspires others to follow,” Local 663 Secretary-Treasurer Michael LaCoste said. “UFCW welcomes any workers that want to build a better life together.”

Wyatt Feten, a bookseller at the Northtown Half Price Books in Coon Rapids, added: “This victory comes from the work of everyone at all of our stores. We are looking forward to this new era at Half Price Books with an official union contract and representation.”

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Grocery workers workers win historic raises, landmark safety language in new contracts

March 25, 2024 by

A Lunds & Byerly’s worker hands out samples at the deli counter inside the downtown St. Paul store.

Contract talks between east-metro grocers and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1189 are off to an encouraging start.

Within weeks of opening negotiations, workers at two retail chains have reached tentative agreements that include the largest wage increases ever for their bargaining units.

Local 1189 announced a tentative contract agreement covering workers at five east metro Lunds & Byerly’s locations March 14. Within a week, the union had another agreement covering workers at six Kowalski’s stores.

Both units were scheduled to take ratification votes in early April, as negotiations continued on contracts covering workers at three other chains: UNFI-owned Cub Foods, Jerry’s and Jerry’s Cub, and Festival Foods.

The first two settlements have set a high bar, and members of the worker-led bargaining teams credited a pro-labor climate, both locally and nationally, with giving them momentum to win big at the bargaining table.

“You see the headlines with the teachers and what’s happened with the auto industry,” Lunds & Byerly’s worker Zach Boling Green said. “Unions are kind of gaining traction in a way I haven’t seen before – and even the more veteran members haven’t seen before. I think that set the stage for this contract.”

Local 1189 members also pointed to the aggressive contract campaign taken on by grocery workers in their sibling local, Minneapolis-based UFCW Local 663, last year. It included several strike votes and informational picketing – and led to historic gains in their contracts.

Claire Van den Berghe, Local 1189’s organizing director, said it was clear that Kowalski’s and Lunds & Bylerly’s were not eager for another round of contentious bargaining, and they could see that Local 1189 members were mobilizing for a fight.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work to prepare for bargaining,” she said. “The employers have clearly noticed, and I think they are anxious about having another big fight. So to head it off, they actually came with good proposals.

“We had built strong committees because we were expecting to have a big fight. They kind of pulled the rug out from under us.”

Gains in the new contracts include increased opportunities for full-time work, protections for meatcutters’ jobs, new language protecting workers from having to travel in dangerous weather and industry-leading wage increases.

Lunds & Byerly’s full-time workers will earn $4.50 per hour more by the end of the two-year contract, $3.50 for part-timers. At Kowalski’s full-time workers will se a $3.75 raise, $2.50 for part-timers.

The pacts also include new safety language, setting minimum staffing on night shifts and, for Lunds workers, creating a new, first-in-the-nation process to develop policies covering violent events in their stores – from prevention and response to accommodations for workers who experience a violent event.

“After events in Buffalo and El Paso, we know that grocery and retail workers, unfortunately, are sometime targets for this kind of violence,” Boling Green said. “We just wanted to ensure the union is present in those discussions around procedures and training.

“Whenever we can have a hand in those things, I think workers stand to benefit.”

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Insulted by 1% wage offer, Half Price Books workers strike

July 13, 2023 by

Striking Half Price Books workers picketed the Roseville store Thursday morning.

Fed up with slow negotiations and an “insulting” wage offer, Half Price Books workers in the Twin Cities called a two-day strike this morning, and more than 40 union members – about three-quarters of the bargaining unit – showed up in Brooklyn Center at the site of scheduled talks with management.

But the bosses responded by canceling negotiations for the week and closing all four stores – the latest example, union member Hanna Anderson said, that the company is more interested in dragging out the process than in taking workers’ demands seriously.

“They told us that they needed the day to figure out the logistics of running the stores, so they couldn’t bargain,” said Anderson, a shift leader at the store in St. Paul’s Highland Park neighborhood. “An hour later we all got messages that all four of the stores were going to be closed for the next two days.”

That left workers, including longtime bookseller Aaron Kerr, fuming on the picket line.

“They are not in there. The stores are not open. Why are they not at the bargaining table?” Kerr said outside the Roseville location where he has worked for more than two decades. “That is something that makes me incredibly angry.”

Union members are angry, too, about HPB’s stubborn wage proposal, stuck at increases of 1% annually since the company made its first economic proposal in May. Anderson said the offer is insulting, especially given that the union scaled back its demands in bargaining earlier this week.

“This past session we came down a little bit,” she said. “They are holding to their 1%, and they refuse to even entertain anything else, which is obviously very upsetting to everyone here. Especially the past week, when the company basically said we don’t deserve a living wage, that really frustrated everyone.”

Workers have proposed increasing HPB’s starting pay from $15 to $16 per hour and $1.50 wage hikes for other employees, plus a new pay scale based on longevity.

Currently, workers get quarterly bonuses and annual raises at their bosses’ discretion, but raises of 2% or 3% don’t amount to much when your pay is stuck at $15 per hour, Anderson said.

“And there have been years where, if we were getting a new computer system, there weren’t bonuses,” she said. “It is just if they are willing to give us them. You can’t rely on them.”

Workers from the St. Paul and Roseville stores bargain jointly with workers from St. Louis Park and Coon Rapids locations. They all voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers – locals 1189 and 663 – in separate elections starting in November 2021.

Negotiations over a first contract began over 19 months ago, and they had been productive before reaching the economic phase, with tentative agreements on workplace health and safety, grievance procedures, scheduling. Other agreements would prevent managers from filling jobs that would take hours away from union members, and would clearly establish a process, based primarily on seniority, for potential layoffs.

Talks turned to economics this spring, and after a round of handbilling and informational picketing failed to move management, workers finally have called a strike, formally citing charges of unfair labor practices that the union filed over management’s failure to share “crucial information.”

It’s a big step for a new union to take, Anderson acknowledged.

“We have been saying ‘strike’ is kind of like the s-word,” she said. “People were nervous. But we have legal protections. We are really a close-knit community, and seeing everyone from all four stores has been really awesome.”

Kerr said support for the strike was overwhelming, and it showed in the turnout at the planned bargaining session this morning.

“In our meetings, everybody showed up and it was almost unanimous that we need to do this,” he said. “We have got to do whatever it takes to make management understand we are serious, or they will continue to pretend that what they want to give us is completely reasonable.”

Workers held picketing at all four stores today, traveling from Coon Rapids to Roseville in the morning, then hitting St. Paul and St. Louis Park in the afternoon.

Supporters are welcome to join the picket line (monitor the union’s social media feeds for locations). Union members are also asking supporters to call on Regional Manager Bill Holland to get back to the bargaining table and settle a fair contract.

Filed Under: Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Workers keep pressure on Half Price Books for a fair first contract

May 26, 2023 by

Workers outside the Roseville store last weekend included (L to R) Garrett Hoffman, Max Sparks, Terell Paris, Hanna Anderson, Aaron Kerr and Bill Lloyd.

Nearly 18 months into bargaining their first union contract, workers at four Half Price Books locations in the Twin Cities are enlisting customer and public support to push their talks across the finish line.

Union members, who began holding public actions outside union stores last weekend, say the bookseller developed a case of writer’s block when it came time to draft economic terms of the contract.

The union’s bargaining team delivered its proposal for wages and benefits earlier this year, said Aaron Kerr, who has over 25 years of experience with the company.

“We were expecting them to counter on that offer two months ago, and they have not,” Kerr said Sunday outside the Roseville store where he works. “They stalled. They brought in a new lawyer, who pretended to not know what we wanted.”

With talks set to resume May 30, union members began appealing to customers outside the Coon Rapids and Roseville stores last weekend. The actions will continue from noon to 1 p.m. Saturday at the St. Louis Park store and at the same time Sunday outside the St. Paul store, located in Highland Park.

“We’re handing out stickers and bookmarks, just telling everybody about what’s going on with our negotiations and asking for their support,” Kerr said. “We want to put some pressure on the company, and hopefully then we can get back to business.”

Workers at all four stores are bargaining jointly with Half Price Books, with representation from the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

The talks had been productive before reaching the economic phase, with the two sides reaching tentative agreements on language regarding workplace health and safety, grievance procedures and scheduling.

Other tentative agreements would prevent managers from filling jobs that would take hours away from workers in union shops, and would clearly establish a process, based primarily on seniority, for potential layoffs.

Kerr said supporters are welcome to show their solidarity inside or outside the stores this weekend, or by signing workers’ petition demanding a living wage and fair benefits.

Half Price Books workers in Roseville and St. Paul went public with their union drive in October 2021 after a round of layoffs that, workers said, were handled arbitrarily and left their stores with inadequate staffing. The union bug spread to Coon Rapids and St. Louis Park in the months that followed.

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

‘Riding the union wave,’ Minneapolis Trader Joe’s workers win landslide election

August 14, 2022 by

Minneapolis Trader Joe’s workers Sarah Beth Ryther and Francisco Lopez embrace after hearing the results of their union election.

Minneapolis is home to the nation’s second unionized Trader Joe’s store, after workers voted overwhelmingly last week in favor of joining together to bargain with the retailer for better wages and safer working conditions.

About a dozen workers on hand Friday, when the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) counted votes in a delivery bay behind the downtown store, celebrated the landslide result – a 55-5 win for the union – with hugs and chocolate chip cookies.

“We are so absolutely excited,” Sarah Beth Ryther, a crew member at the Minneapolis Trader Joe’s, said after the vote count. “This has taken so much time and work and dedication.”

The organizing campaign began in early spring, and workers approached management in June with a petition, signed by a majority of employees, requesting voluntary recognition of their union.

The grocer denied that request, prompting workers to file for an election with the NLRB.

Corporate executives used the six weeks between receiving workers’ petition and balloting to try to undermine support for the union drive. “They were taking employees aside, telling them untrue things about what a union could be in our store,” Ryther said.

It didn’t work, she explained, because workers understood they were the union. “We’d been having conversations with each other since early spring about what we wanted our union to look like.”

Workers in Hadley, Mass., were the first in the 535-store grocery chain to unionize in late July. Both groups elected to join Trader Joe’s United, an independent union that is not affiliated with international unions or federations like the AFL-CIO.

But workers in Minneapolis said they already feel at home in the labor movement, which has seen a recent burst of organizing at nationwide chains like Starbucks and Half Price Books. Trader Joe’s United has active organizing drives at other locations too, including Colorado.

“It feels like we’re riding the new union wave,” Ryther said. “We’re psyched to be the second Trader Joe’s to do this, and if other Trader Joe’s workers want to join us, we’d welcome them with open arms.”

In bargaining a first contract, workers said they intend to push for better wages and benefits, and for more robust safety training and security measures after a string of unsettling incidents in the store earlier this year.

Ryther said when local managers have passed along workers’ safety-related concerns to corporate in the past, they “have fallen on deaf ears.” That will change now that employees have a seat at the table.

The California-based grocery chain has expressed a willingness to engage in bargaining. After workers in Hadley won their election, the corporation released a statement saying it was disappointed but “prepared to immediately begin discussions 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 company with stores in the area, selected by the union representatives, as a template to negotiate a new structure for the employees in this store; including pay, retirement, healthcare, and working conditions such as scheduling and job flexibility.”

 

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , , ,

Guthrie scenic artists voting in union election this month

February 1, 2022 by

Workers at he Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis are set to vote by mail in a union election this month conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.

The Guthrie’s scenic artists petitioned the labor board in December after an organizing drive supported by United Scenic Artists Local 829. The IATSE affiliate represents over 5,000 set designers across the U.S.

Fifteen workers are eligible to vote in the mail-in election. The NLRB will tally votes Feb. 22.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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