“I expect that workers with assistance from their advocates will take matters into their own hands … [+]
Unions have been making a lot of noise in retail recently and people are taking noticed. Just a few days ago, more than 10,000 Kroger workers in Colorado went on strike, citing unfair labor practices. Costco narrowly avoided a strike by the Teamsters after tense months-long contract negotiations. And both Amazon and Starbucks experienced high-profile strikes in the days leading up to Christmas.
Americans are increasingly taking the side of workers as public opinion has turned overwhelmingly pro-union in recent years. Fifteen years ago, only about half of Americans approved of unions. Last year, it rose to 70%, just one percentage point below the 71% hit in 2022. That was a historic high since 1972 when Gallup began tracking union approval ratings annually.
Despite retail being the nation’s leading private-sector employer, only 4% of retail workers belong to a union, lower than the 6% rate of American private-sector workers overall, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, the retail union membership rate ticked up from 3.7% in 2023. My suspicion is that rate will continue to grow because retail workers feel underappreciated, disrespected and under-rewarded by their employers.
Virtually every retail CEO acknowledges the contribution of rank-and-file employees in earnings calls. However, those words are cheap when employees want something more tangible to show for their hard work. Joining a union might not be the only or best answer to widespread retail job dissatisfaction – certainly not the one that any retailer wants – yet its appeal is growing.
Amazon On The Front Lines
Teamster delivery drivers working for Amazon went on strike right in the midst of last year’s holiday rush. The strike lasted only a few days and was settled on Christmas Eve but the Teamsters warned, “Make no mistake the Teamsters will never let up and workers will never stop fighting for their rights at Amazon. Stay tuned.”
During the strike, the Teamsters held protests in over 200 locations, though workers in only nine warehouses were actually involved. The company claims the drivers are not company employees but contract workers. Yet, they still wear a company uniform and customers don’t know the difference.
Any way you look at it, a union strike is an operational and PR nightmare. “They cost a fortune for the company and if you continue to operate the business, you bring in people who are not well trained or as productive,” shared labor relations attorney Jane Jacobs, partner at Tarter, Krinsky & Drogan law firm. “And then other people, like contractors, workers and drivers from other companies, won’t cross the picket line. There are no winners in a strike, including the employees.”
Amazon Fighting Unions Tooth-And-Nail
As for actual company employees – Amazon is the nation’s second-largest private employer, with some 740,000 workers across 1,000 warehouses and distribution centers – only one Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, NY has been unionized. Some 8,000 workers there now belong to the ALU-IBT union, which stands for Amazon Labor Union, officially affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
However, Amazon does not recognize the union and continues to battle it in court, even though the National Labor Relations Board certified the 2022 Staten Island vote. “There are a lot of nuances here but I want to be clear, the Teamsters don’t represent any Amazon employees despite their claims to the contrary,” an Amazon spokesperson shared with CNN.
Amazon workers have long asked the retail giant for better pay, benefits and working conditions. They have a point. Safety violations in Amazon warehouses have been well documented by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Amazon employee unionization efforts continue grow. A vote is scheduled this month in a North Carolina warehouse. And an Alabama warehouse tried two times to unionize and failed.
However, union organizers took it to the National Labor Relations Board, claiming Amazon management played dirty tricks to upset the vote. In November, a three-member panel of NLRB judges ruled on the side of labor organizers and determined another vote should be held.
Whole Foods Store Unionizes
On the Whole Foods’ front – Amazon acquired the 460 store chain in 2017 for $13.7 billion – a store in Philadelphia just joined the United Food and Commercial Workers union, the first Whole Foods to unionize. Besides seeking better pay and benefits, workers also complained about how Amazon’s frenetic workplace culture has rubbed off at Whole Foods, taking a physical and emotional toll on employees, according to local PBS station WHYY.
The Whole Foods workers also expressed an “extra layer of consternation” with the company’s ownership by billionaire Jeff Bezos, ranked by Forbes as the nation’s third richest person after Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
This is likely a sticking point across retail more widely where the average retail worker makes around $16 per hour. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 290-to-1 in 2023. And CEO pay has exponentially grown by 1,085% since 1978 while the typical workers’ pay has risen only 24%.
Dissatisfaction Brewing at Starbucks
Starbucks is feeling the union heat too. On Christmas Eve, Starbuck’s baristas at over 300 stores in Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle went on strike, bringing a rash of news coverage. At the time, the company disputed the union claims and said only 170 stores did not open due to the strike, according to NRP.
Over 11,000 baristas at 500 Starbucks stores have joined the Starbucks Workers United. That’s only a fraction of the 200,000+ employees and 11,000 company-owned stores in the U.S., but it signals growing employee frustration at the grass-roots level. A typical barista behind the counter makes less than $20 per hour.
“This milestone is a testament to workers building power from the ground up,” Lynne Fox, president of Workers United, said in a statement after workers at the 500th Starbucks store voted yes for the union. “Starbucks partners have boldly demanded a voice on the job and with it, strong contracts that ensure respect, living wages, racial and gender equity, fair scheduling and more.”
The pay and benefits disparity between the stores and headquarters couldn’t go unnoticed after the high-profile appointment of new CEO Brian Niccol. Besides his base $1.6 million salary, plus an incentive bonus up to $7.2 million per year, he also got a $10 million signing bonus and an extra $75 million stock to cover his losses from his previous employer Chipotle.
All-in-all, Seattle local news station KIRO7 confirmed Niccol’s pay package totals $94 million, not to mention the cushy deal he gets to avoid moving to Seattle from his home in Newport Beach, CA. The company jet will fly him to Seattle as needed and pay his housing expenses when visiting there, while he routinely works from home.
Costco Behind The Lines
Despite having a reputation as one of the very best retail employers, Costco got a lot of unwanted press recently as some 18,000 Teamster employees at over 50 unionized Costco stores threatened to strike on February 1 if a new contract wasn’t settled.
The Teamsters were asking for improved seniority pay, paid family leave, bereavement policies, sick time and safeguards against surveillance. The company let months-long negotiations go down to the wire before tentatively agreeing to a new contract.
The company’s apparent intransigence in contract negotiations stands in stark contrast to the mea-culpa letter outgoing CEO-Craig Jelinek and incoming-CEO Ron Vachris sent to employees at a Norfolk, VA store that voted to unionize.
“To be honest, we’re disappointed by the result in Norfolk. We’re not disappointed in our employees; we’re disappointed in ourselves as managers and leaders. The fact that that a majority of Norfolk employees feel they wanted or needed a union constitutes a failure on our part,” they wrote.
To date, fewer than 10% of Costco’s 219,000 U.S. employees are organized under the Teamsters union. But more may follow as the Teamsters took credit for the pay raise granted to all non-unionized hourly employees just days before reaching a contract agreement.
Costco Teamsters spokesperson Matthew McQuaid said the company wouldn’t be raising pay if not for the union’s pressure, adding, “Costco is still shorting their workers because nonunion workers lack the retirement security of a defined benefit pension plan and the job protections that come with a union contract.”
Beyond Costco, the Teamsters have been accelerating the pace of union membership since Sean O’Brien became union president in March 2022. The union has brought in over 70,000 new members since then, up from 57,000 new members added over the entire previous decade. Among the new sign-ons are 2,500 workers at United Natural Foods, which is a major distributor to Whole Foods.
Populist Sentiment Rising
Attorney Jacobs observes that the increasing pro-union sentiment may go hand-in-hand with the MAGA movement. Whereas traditional Republican administrations would tend to side with employers, “That’s not necessarily true in this case. There’s a strong populist contingent among Trump supporters,” she said.
She also notes that while the Teamsters union didn’t officially endorse a presidential candidate in the last election, the fact that union president O’Brien spoke at the National Republican Convention showed which way the political winds are blowing.
Government Oversight Missing
At the same time, the Trump administration has hamstrung the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by firing the NLRB general counsel, along with a Democrat member of the board and two members of the EEOC.
Neither of these government oversight agencies now have a quorum to make rulings and it may take some time before these critical labor-relations vacancies are filled.
“There’s no putting that genie back in the bottle,” wrote dismissed NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. “So, if the Agency does not fully effectuate its Congressional mandate in the future as we did during my tenure, I expect that workers with assistance from their advocates will take matters into their own hands in order to get well-deserved dignity and respect in the workplace.”
Unions could well be the advocates retail workers turn to for assistance if they can’t depend on the NLRB or EEOC. Waiting for them with open arms are The Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers union and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store union, which now counts 600 REI workers, employees at six Guitar Centers and four Barnes & Noble stores as members.
