Dive Brief:

• Employees at a pair of Trader Joe’s locations in New York and Oakland, California, have filed plans with the National Labor Relations Board to vote on whether to unionize, according to a Wednesday press release from Trader Joe’s United, the union they are looking to join.
• The stores would each become the first unionized Trader Joe’s store in the market where it is located if its workers decide to formally organize.
• The planned elections continue a unionization drive by Trader Joe’s workers that took flight last year and has drawn varying levels of support from employees.

Dive Insight:

Trader Joe’s United described the decision by workers at the two stores to press forward with efforts to unionize as a “historic first” for the fledgling labor organization, which currently represents workers at just a tiny fraction of the grocer’s more than 500 locations across the country.

The union said Wednesday that Trader Joe’s had not yet formally responded to the petitions the workers filed for the unionization votes. In its announcement about the planned votes, the labor organization pointed out that if the drive in Oakland is successful, it would make the location the first unionized Trader Joe’s store in the company’s home state. Trader Joe’s is based in Monrovia, California.

Last July, workers at a Trader Joe’s store in Hadley, Massachusetts, became the first in the chain to unionize when they voted 45-31 to become part of Trader Joe’s United. The following month, employees at a Trader Joe’s location in Minneapolis decided to join the union in a lopsided vote, with 55 workers voting in favor of the plan and just five opposing it.

Trader Joe’s workers in Louisville, Kentucky, voted 48-36 to join Trader Joe’s United, but the grocer filed an objection to the outcome of the election with the NLRB, arguing that workers and an attorney for the union had interfered in the process.

In October, workers at a Trader Joe’s location in Brooklyn, New York, handed Trader Joe’s its first election defeat, voting 94-66 to reject the union’s effort to bring them on board. Earlier in the year, workers at a store in Boulder, Colorado, withdrew a petition for a union election that they had filed with the NLRB.

Trader Joe’s United has recently been negotiating a contract with the company for workers at the Hadley, Massachusetts, location. The union, which has said Trader Joe’s has reduced retirement benefits, provided substandard pay and not dealt effectively with safety-related issues, reported last week that the grocer has mostly pushed back on its efforts to win better terms.