PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Workers at Whole Foods Market in the city’s Spring Garden section say the company is taking a harder stance ahead of its employees’ union election, which could make the store the first in the Amazon-owned chain to unionize.
The National Labor Relations Board, last month, scheduled a union vote at the store for Jan. 27. Employees described the store’s response, at first, as a “charm offensive,” with a spruced-up break room and snacks for workers, among other enticements. Last Friday, however, they say tactics changed.
Mase Veney, who works in the produce department, says he and other employees were called into a meeting last week and told every other store in the region would be getting a raise — except for the Spring Garden store.
“I was irritated, but I thought it was funny too, because I knew what they were trying to do,” Veney said.
He believes the company was trying to punish its workers for unionizing. Whole Foods maintains it was trying to follow the law that says it can’t try to influence the union election by giving raises.
“What they’re doing is blatantly illegal,” said Wendell Young, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776, which would represent the employees if they vote to organize. “They're punishing them for trying to form a union and that is against the law.”
He says the company’s explanation is a complete misreading of the law and the union intends to file charges with the NLRB.
Employee Ed Dupree says he doesn’t think the raise being withheld has had any impact on his co-workers’ positions on the union vote. But he does see it as a signal of tougher tactics from management. “They’re jumping to a clearly more offensive degree of pressure on people,” he said.
Whole Foods says it will extend the raise to Spring Garden employees when it is legally allowed to do so. The company has said it recognizes employees’ right to make an informed decision on union representation.