Massachusetts Trader Joe’s Employees Battle Divisive Union Organizing Campaign
Trader Joe’s workers demand vote to oust union, blast union bosses in Congress and media
Trader Joe’s employees Les Stratford (left) and Michael Alcorn want to restore the fun and independent work environment that existed in the store before union officials sowed discord.
HADLEY, MA – Union bosses and Big Labor-allied media cheered when the Hadley, MA, branch of supermarket chain Trader Joe’s became the first unionized location in the country in 2022. But what all their celebration concealed was the fact that union officials had swept to power at the location through a deeply deceptive campaign that demonized both the company and many employees. Now many of the Hadley-based Trader Joe’s employees are fighting to kick the union out.
“Officials of this union have sowed division and smeared both our workplace and anyone who dissents from the union’s agenda pretty much from the time the campaign began to unionize the store,” Trader Joe’s employee Les Stratford told Supermarket News about the situation.
Michael Alcorn, another Hadley Trader Joe’s worker who simply wanted to have a conversation with his coworkers about the ramifications of unionizing, said that union militants “weren’t going to have a meeting with us…immediately it was like ‘you either accept the union, or you don’t, and we’re not going to talk about it all together because if you don’t accept it, we don’t trust you.’”
Now, with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation, Stratford, Alcorn, and many other Hadley Trader Joe’s employees are backing an effort to vote the union out of power at the store. Stratford in August submitted a union decertification petition asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold an election among his coworkers on whether to remove the union, which contained well over the support needed to trigger a decertification vote under NLRB rules.
Because Massachusetts lacks Right to Work protections for its private sector workers, the union has the legal privilege to enforce contracts that require Trader Joe’s employees to pay dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs.
In Right to Work states, in contrast, union membership and financial support are strictly voluntary. A vote by the majority of Hadley Trader Joe’s employees against the union would free them from both the union’s forced-dues and monopoly bargaining powers.
Trader Joe’s Employee Exposes Union Tactics on Capitol Hill
In May, Alcorn brought the concerns many of the Hadley Trader Joe’s employees had directly into the halls of Congress when he was called by the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce to testify about coercive tactics union bosses use to gain power and stay in power.
In addition to describing the union’s vilification of any skeptical employee, he noted that union organizers tried to foist union control of the workplace through “card check” — a process that bypasses the NLRB’s secret ballot election system and lets union officials aggressively solicit “cards” that are later counted as votes for the union.
Union organizers also “made inaccurate and incomplete press releases, creating false narratives about our workplace to promote their own agenda and personal vendettas,” Alcorn said.
Workers Need More Freedom to Oust Abrasive Union Bosses
The Hadley Trader Joe’s workers’ efforts come as the Biden-Harris NLRB announced a final rule which will make it much harder for rank-and-file workers to exercise their right to vote out union officials they oppose. The final rule, among other things, lets union officials prevent decertification votes from going forward by filing unverified “blocking charges” alleging employer interference.
While the Trader Joe’s employees’ petition will be unaffected by the rule change, the new policy will likely quash or substantially delay similar efforts in the future. “The situation at the Hadley, MA, Trader Joe’s store shows exactly why workers’ right to vote to remove a union they oppose must be protected,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Legal Director and Vice President William Messenger.
“During a union campaign, union officials often employ aggressive tactics and ‘us vs. them’ or hate-the-boss rhetoric that cause division and prioritize union bosses’ agenda over workers’ freedoms and individual choices.
“That the Biden-Harris Administration stripped workers of what few rights they had to challenge union officials that perpetrate these acts shows they are on the side of Big Labor, not individual workers,” Messenger added.
Foundation Exposes Union Boss Coercion & Discrimination Before Congress
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, September/October 2024 edition. To view other editions of Foundation Action or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
U.S. House relies on Foundation for insight on ‘card check’ and forced-dues-for-politics
“The Law Has Failed Me”: This was MIT Ph.D. student Will Sussman’s response when asked by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) whether current federal labor law protects union dissenters. Sussman recommended nationwide Right to Work protections.
WASHINGTON, DC – Within the past few months, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys and recipients of free Foundation legal aid have appeared multiple times before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, revealing the anti-freedom tactics union bosses use to sweep workers under their power and prop up their radical political agenda.
In May, U.S. House members called Foundation Vice President and Legal Director William Messenger as an expert witness in a hearing named “Big Labor Lies: Exposing Union Tactics to undermine Free and Fair Elections.” The hearing was designed to probe how current federal labor policies are letting union bosses deprive American workers of even the basic protection of a secret ballot election when union organizers target their workplace for monopoly unionization.
In July, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Ph.D. student Will Sussman, who received free Foundation legal aid in filing federal anti-discrimination charges against union bosses on his campus, appeared before the U.S. House to recount his battle against MIT Graduate Student Union (GSUUE) officials. GSU union bosses demanded Sussman, who is Jewish, fund union activities despite his repeated and forceful objections to the union’s anti-Israel pursuits.
The July hearing, called “Confronting Union Antisemitism: Protecting Workers from Big Labor Abuses,” also featured testimony from veteran Foundation staff attorney Glenn Taubman, who is providing free legal representation to Sussman and other MIT graduate students challenging forced-dues demands from GSU.
“Whether it’s union officials seizing power in a workplace without giving employees a chance to vote, or using graduate students’ money to fuel radical protests and other unrest on college campuses, these outrageous activities all have one thing in common — union boss privileges heavily ingrained in federal labor law,” commented National Right to Work Foundation Vice President Patrick Semmens. “No organization in the country has been more active than the Foundation in countering these coercive practices on behalf of rank-and-file workers.
“As the Biden Administration ramps up its attacks on worker freedom, we are honored and gratified that U.S. representatives look to Foundation attorneys and Foundation-backed workers for perspectives on how to defend worker freedom.”
Foundation Legal Director: ‘Card Check’ Permits Union Boss Tyranny
At its hearing in May, the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce listened to William Messenger testify regarding union bosses’ two favorite tactics for gaining power: “card check” drives and censorship of speech critical of the union.
Card check is a process that lets union bosses gain power in a workplace without giving employees a chance to vote in secret on whether they want a union. Union officials can gang up on workers and even harass them to obtain signatures on union authorization cards, which are later counted as “votes” for the union. This process opens workers to intimidation and threats, something not found with secret balloting.
Union Censorship Exposed by Foundation
As if that weren’t bad enough, Messenger testified how the Biden-Harris NLRB “operates the most repressive regime of government censorship in the nation” by censoring employees’ ability to hear basic truthful information from employers that union officials don’t want workers to hear.
“Just imagine if the ruling party of a third-world nation decided to use such a process instead of having secret-ballot elections for political office,” Messenger testified. “Instead of having elections, the ruling party would go around to people’s homes and workplaces and collect ‘votes’ for the party. Instead of free speech, only the ruling party would be allowed to campaign.
“I submit this process is nothing like a democratic process,” Messenger declared. “Yet the Biden NLRB is . . . mandating card check with its Cemex decision, under which it’s now an unfair labor practice . . . for an employer to refuse to recognize a union based on cards.”
At the July hearing, Will Sussman detailed the harrowing story of how GSU union bosses continued demanding dues payments from him and other Jewish MIT graduate students even after they had informed the union of their religious objections and requested religious accommodations due to their beliefs. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires union officials to accommodate those that have religious objections to subsidizing union activities; in practice this usually entails letting the employee pay an amount equivalent to dues to a charity.
MIT Grad Student Recounts Union Discrimination, Calls for Right to Work
But Sussman explained that the union blew off this legal duty, and legal action by the Foundation’s attorneys was needed: “The union denied my request, telling me in a letter that ‘no principles, teachings or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union’ . . . In other words, UE thinks it understands my faith better than I do.
“This Congress should pass the National Right to Work Act, so that unions have to earn their dues and think twice before discriminating against minorities,” Sussman added.
National Right to Work Foundation Attorney Testifies Before Congress, Spotlighting NLRB Push for Coercive ‘Card Check’
Experienced worker attorney blasts NLRB effort to rewrite the law to eliminate secret ballot votes & trap workers in unions they oppose
Washington, D.C. (May 23, 2023) – Today, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorney Aaron Solem will testify in front of the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions chaired by Representative Bob Good. Solem’s testimony will highlight the growing issues with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and how the current NLRB and NLRB General Counsel are undermining the rights of workers in order to grant union bosses more coercive power.
Solem’s testimony emphasizes a growing number of NLRB failures to protect employees’ rights in the workplace, including General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo’s plan to eliminate secret ballot elections and mandate unionization based on coercive “card check.” Solem’s testimony also blasts the NLRB for attempting to repeal restrictions which make it easier for union officials to file “blocking charges,” which can delay or block decertification elections no matter how many workers have signed a petition requesting a vote and opposes the union’s so-called “representation”:
“NLRB General Counsel Abruzzo, the Biden-appointed majority on the NLRB, and even some in this Congress are attempting to undermine employee free choice by ending or limiting the secret ballot. General Counsel Abruzzo is seeking to virtually end secret ballot elections and mandate unreliable, undemocratic union card checks as the primary method of union selection. The Board is also making it harder to oust a minority union by bringing back the disreputed and heavily criticized ‘blocking charge’ policy. This policy will make it harder for individual employees to decertify unwanted unions through secret ballot elections, even if 100% of the employees no longer wish to be represented.”
After highlighting the egregious dissolution of employee rights happening under Abruzzo and the Biden Administration, Solem suggested some reforms Congress could make to strengthen the freedoms of rank-and-file workers, including those he represents in cases before the NLRB:
“Rather than ratify the Board and General Counsel’s attempts to undermine secret ballot elections and entrench unpopular unions, this Committee should look to other solutions. Those solutions should grant employees more choices—ideally, the choice not to be forced to pay dues to a union. At the very least, the solution should guarantee employees a right to vote in a secret ballot election. These are far better solutions than the divisive policies being pursued by the Biden Administration and its politically-motivated appointees to the Board.”
Solem testified alongside former NLRB Member Phil Miscimarra, small business owner Cecil Leedy, and forced union dues-funded CWA lawyer Angela Thompson.
“Union bosses should not be given the power to force workers under their so-called ‘representation’ without even a secret ballot election,” observed National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “More scrutiny is needed of the Biden NLRB, which time after time seems to be acting like taxpayer-funded organizing for Big Labor, rather than a neutral arbiter of a law that is supposed to protect the legal rights of workers who are opposed to unionization.”
Foundation Winning Protections Against Forced Unionism at Trump NLRB
The following article is from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation’s bi-monthly Foundation Action Newsletter, September/October 2019 edition. To view other editions or to sign up for a free subscription, click here.
Series of victories adds protections against illegal forced dues, being trapped in union ranks
Staff attorney Glenn Taubman testified before Congress in July that existing NLRB rules wrongly favor union bosses over workers.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a series of recent victories, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled in favor of workers challenging coercive union official practices, with free legal aid provided by the National Right to Work Foundation. The rulings are a stark departure from the Obama NLRB, which regularly stymied the rights of independent-minded employees opposed to associating with union bosses.
Foundation Wins Appeals in Dues Checkoff Cases
In separate cases brought by Foundation staff attorneys for Kacy Warner, a hospital worker, and Shelby Krocker, a Kroger grocery employee, the NLRB General Counsel ruled for the workers and ordered Regional Directors to prosecute union officials’ actions related to language in union dues checkoff forms.
The General Counsel’s decision to sustain Warner’s appeal concerning the checkoff authorized even more additions to the charges, saying the National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) union violated the NLRA by “maintaining confusing and ambiguous dual-purpose authorization forms that unlawfully restrained employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights.”
The General Counsel noted that the union’s forms failed to tell workers they can revoke authorizations for dues deductions after the union’s contract expires, failed to give workers adequate time to revoke authorizations, unlawfully required workers to use certified mail to send revocation requests, and failed to give “any indication to employees that payroll deduction authorization is voluntary.”
This came just a week after the General Counsel sustained another Foundation-led appeal for Krocker, who charged United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union officials with illegally forcing her to sign a dues checkoff authorization. In both cases, the NLRB General Counsel authorized even more charges against union officials for misleading and confusing language regarding union dues deductions.
NLRB Regions Instructed to Prosecute Beck Violations
Also in July, the NLRB Division of Advice and General Counsel instructed regional directors to issue complaints against unions when union officials fail to inform employees of the amount of reduced union fees they can pay by objecting under the Communication Workers of America v. Beck U.S. Supreme Court decision.
The memos instruct NLRB Regional Directors to more stringently enforce workers’ Beck rights which protect workers from being forced to fund nonchargeable union activities such as union political activities. A memo issued to the Director of NLRB Region 32 read in part that “it is difficult for an employee to make an informed decision about whether to become a Beck objector without knowing the amount of savings that would result from the decision.”
“The Foundation is proud to have represented the California employee whose charge against the UFCW resulted in this Advice Memo, as well as necessitating this heightened disclosure standard by winning the Beck decision at the Supreme Court and the Penrod decision at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals,” National Right to Work Foundation Vice President and Legal Director Ray LaJeunesse said. Foundation staff attorneys are currently litigating several additional cases to secure and expand workers’ protections under Beck.
Ruling Aids Workers Trapped in Union Ranks They Oppose
In another Foundation victory for independent-minded workers in July, the NLRB issued a decision that limits union officials’ ability to game the NLRB system to trap workers in monopoly union ranks. The ruling allows employers to withdraw recognition from a union when a majority of its workers sign statements opposing unionization.
Foundation staff attorneys represented two workers, Brenda Lynch and Anna Marie Grant, who spearheaded the collection of signatures from a majority of workers opposed to union representation. Their employer complied with their wishes and sent the union bosses packing. After United Auto Workers (UAW) union officials sought to foist the union back onto the workers despite their clear opposition, Foundation staff attorneys persuaded the NLRB to uphold the UAW’s ouster.
“Instead of union lawyers playing legal games for months or even years to block the removal of a union that lacks majority support, the Board majority takes the common sense approach of asking union officials to prove their claim of support in a secret ballot vote of the workers,” said LaJeunesse.
