LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — The staff of the National Labor Relations Board is behind Trader Joe’s workers in Louisville who say the grocery store chain illegally threatened them to discourage their forming a union about a week before workers were set to vote on the matter in January 2023.
In a complaint filed March 11, the NLRB’s regional office in Cincinnati said a Louisville store supervisor for Trader Joe’s “threatened employees with loss of pay raises” and “with a loss of flexibility with taking days off and scheduling work” about a week before the union election on Jan. 26, 2023.
The agency said the grocer also “interrogated employees” about the union and required them to participate in one-on-one conversations meant to discourage union support.
The Louisville store at 4600 Shelbyville Road is one of four Trader Joe’s locations whose workforces have organized with Trader Joe’s United, an upstart union formed in 2022.
The NLRB’s charges against Trader Joe’s are merely a first step. While the agency is seeking a settlement with the company, the case could be decided by administrative law judge and later by the labor relations board itself, whose five members are appointed by the president.
Trader Joe’s didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday. A store worker identified as a spokesperson by the union also didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Trader Joe’s makes ‘outrageous’ argument against NLRB
Trader Joe’s has recently joined other large employers such as Starbucks, Amazon and Elon Musk’s SpaceX in challenging the constitutionality of the NLRB, which has been a cornerstone of U.S. labor law since it was created in 1937.
The NLRB has been seen as more aggressively pro-worker under President Biden, who has called himself the most pro-union president in history.
The NLRB is a forum for workers and employers to adjudicate disputes about union activity. It is the arbiter of whether an employer has to recognize and negotiate with any particular union.
In a separate NLRB case in Connecticut, an attorney for Trader Joe’s told an administrative law judge in January that the grocery store disputes the constitutionality of the NLRB, Bloomberg reported.
Ariana Levinson, a labor law expert at the University of Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law, said Trader Joe’s may make the same argument when responding to the NLRB’s complaint in Louisville — a position she called “outrageous.”
“This story is part of a national story where monied interests are taking advantage of a politicized legal system to undermine workers’ well-being,” Levinson said.
The NLRB staff’s decision to file the complaint related to the Louisville store is likely a “small setback” for the company, Levinson said.
If the agency doesn’t settle with Trader Joe’s, then an administrative law judge will hear the case, followed by the national board. And after that, any disagreements could be hashed out in the federal court system.
“The long NLRB process with plenty of opportunities for delay tends to undermine worker solidarity and weaken union movements,” Levinson said.
The NLRB’s move also signifies that workers’ complaints about illegal treatment in the run-up to last year’s vote were “well founded,” Levinson said.
In addition to Louisville, NLRB regional offices have recently charged Trader Joe’s with unfair labor practices in New York, Massachusetts and Minnesota.
The agency has reached settlements with Trader Joe’s regarding complaints Williamsburg, New York; Garden City, New York; Minneapolis and Little Rock, Arkansas.
The Louisville employees voted 48-36 in favor of unionizing on Jan. 26, 2023. The NLRB’s Cincinnati office certified the election for the union in January 2024, overruling the company’s objections to the election.
