LES Trader Joe’s workers could still unionize

Workers at the Trader Joe’s on the Lower East Side who lost their bid to unionize following a tie vote in April are vying for a second chance to bargain collectively under a new standard handed down by the National Labor Relations Board on Aug. 25. 

According to the new union-friendly framework, if during the period between when workers file a unionization petition and hold an election, the board determines that the employees’ company engaged in unfair labor practices sufficient enough to have affected the vote, the NLRB can order the company to bargain with its workers, regardless of election results.

A lawyer representing the Trader Joe’s United union, Seth Goldstein, told The Chief last week that he had filed more than a dozen unfair labor practices charges against the company with the NLRB since the workers first petitioned to unionize early this year.

“Any violations of labor law may result in a bargaining order which should promote better behavior by supervisors and managers at Trader Joe’s and other companies,” Goldstein said, explaining the NLRB’s new directive. “I think it's important for unions to start doing things like this, to use the board to help organize against employers that engage in these terrible unfair labor practices.”

Under the board’s new Cemex standard, so-named for the Cemex Construction Materials Pacific LLC, once workers turn in their union authorization cards, the employer must promptly either voluntarily recognize the union or call for an election. 

In the past, when the NRLB found that a company engaged in unfair labor practices in the run-up to an election that affected the election’s outcome, the board would typically order the election to be held again.

“But once your union is busted, it's hard to win a second election,” Goldstein said. “People quit, people get fired and the other employees lose confidence.”

‘We lost because of union-busting’

Jordan Pollack, an employee at Trader Joe’s who helped lead the union effort, said she and other workers at the store are thrilled that the NLRB will be reviewing their unfair labor practice charges under the new framework. But she added that workers at the store understand it could take a long time for the board to hand down a decision.

“We’re going to have to have a lot of energy and patience,” Pollack said. “But this new rule dissuades companies from union-busting, which is amazing and there’s not a lot of laws or regulations in place that actually do that.”

Pollack is sure that the election failed because of the company’s “brutal and traumatic” tactics she said included captive-audience meetings. She said that managers also took down pro-union posters in the break room and lied about what would happen if they unionized. 

"I feel like the support we lost was because of the union-busting,” Pollack said, noting that the effort to join Trader Joe’s United had majority support when she and her colleagues at the Grand Street store signed union authorization cards.

She added that since the election, several long-time employees who were vocally pro-union have had their schedules shifted around for the first time in years, and that management has been disciplining workers more often.

Trader Joe’s did not respond to a request for comment.

In announcing the new decision, the NLRB wrote that the new standard would “improve the fairness and integrity of Board-conducted elections,” and “promote a fair election environment by more effectively disincentivizing employers from committing unfair labor practices.”

“The Cemex decision reaffirms that elections are not the only appropriate path for seeking union representation, while also ensuring that, when elections take place, they occur in a fair election environment,” Lauren McFerran, the chairman of the NLRB, said in a statement. “Under Cemex, an employer is free to use the Board’s election procedure, but is never free to abuse it — it's as simple as that.”

dfreeman@thechiefleader.com