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Mass. Trader Joe’s used ‘coercive threats’ against union members, NLRB finds
The store illegally told workers to take off union pins and denied them the same retirement benefits as non-union members.
An administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board found that the Trader Joe’s in Hadley violated labor laws by illegally telling workers to take off union pins and denying union members the same retirement benefits as non-union employees.
Judge Charles Muhl issued this decision on Nov. 8, ordering the specialty grocery chain to cease the unlawful practices, make affected employees whole again through wage compensation, and remove negative reprisals involving union-protected activity.
Seth Goldstein of Julien Mirer & Singla, who represents Trader Joe’s United, said members of the employee-led union are generally “happy” about the decision. But, they did not like that the judge found that the discharge of one employee was lawful.
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In response to the decision, Trader Joe’s, in a statement, said, “We are pleased with the NLRB Administrative Law Judge’s determinations in favor of Trader Joe’s, including that we do not terminate Crew Members’ employment because they support unionization.”
“As we have always said, Trader Joe’s supports our Crew Members’ rights to choose whether or not they want to be represented by a union,” the statement continued.
However, Goldstein said, the decision is one of many, with 22 cases pending against the company at the Hadley store alone for a myriad of alleged violations.
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“The problem is the so-called progressive company pretends that it is union-friendly and things that they care about — but they’re not,” he said. “They just want to bust the union.”
In its statement, Trader Joe’s said it disagrees with some of the judge’s findings. It intends to appeal a portion of the decision but would not share which portions it plans to appeal.
Goldstein said there are about 100 union members at the Hadley store. The employees voted to unionize on Aug. 5, 2022, becoming the first Trader Joe’s in the nation to do so.
This case mainly occurred during the weeks leading up to and shortly after the workers voted to unionize.
The decision said most of the 18 allegations involved workers’ rights to wear union insignia, which were met by acts of “coercive threats by supervisors,” violating labor laws.
Trader Joe’s violated the law by “impliedly threatening employees with negative appraisals if they wore union insignia and threatening to freeze employees’ wages or implement worsening working conditions if they selected the Union as their bargaining representative,” the decision said.
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The judge found that Trader Joe’s violated labor laws on 17 occasions from May 30 to June 11, 2022, when it interfered with employees protected right to wear union insignia when employers selectively and disparately enforced its dress and personal appearance rule.
On Jan. 23, 2023, the judge said the company also broke the law by providing less favorable retirement benefits to unionized employees at the Hadley and Minneapolis stores than it provided non-union employees nationwide, thereby modifying its Dec. 2, 2022, agreement with the union.
Even though the judge did not directly address how Trader Joe’s argued that the National Labor Relations Act and the agency’s administrative law judges are unconstitutional, it was noted in a footnote. The judge said the company “made no argument in its brief in support of this defense.”
Goldstein said that with the change of administration at the national level, companies such as Trader Joe’s hope to eliminate the labor law.
“I want to credit the Trader Joe’s United workers who fought back on that issue and organized around Trader Joe’s unwillingness to overrule a 90-year-old law,” Goldstein said. “They succeeded in turning a legal issue into an organizing issue.”
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“I think Trader Joe’s workers have shown a path in which workers can successfully organize, push back, and be successful about it,” he continued.
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