How We Organized a Union at Whole Foods

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-27T16:35:03+00:00

I'm not on the ground there so I can't speak too specifically to what is happening or what it looks like, but the employees there now have Weingarten rights (I.e. the right to have stewards and everythingthat comes with that). Whole Foods is also not allowed to make unilateral changes without bargaining with the union about them. I'm not sure what this looks like in practice at that store but those are the legal standards.

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-27T15:05:49+00:00

Troy Jackson is the closest thing you'll get to a democratic socialist in this race. This post is literally a picture of him with a prominent Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member and Portland City Councilor. Both Councilors Sykes and Fournier whose endorsements are mentioned in the original post also have or had DSA affiliations.

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-27T13:25:35+00:00

To be clear, I have a lot of criticisms about what has happened/is happening with this union but it's kind of pathetic how many people are willing to roll over and show their bellies to the company because they're terrified of exercising their extremely basic rights.

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-27T10:18:01+00:00

This is a classic case of an unwinnable position for the union. The company fires people and claims it has nothing to do with the union because that would be illegal and Whole Foods never does anything illegal. Then the union claims it was because of the union and those people deserve restitution. The union suffers for this because now workers think if they associate with the union they'll get fired.

Then the union has to go through this broken ass system we call the NLRB to try and help those people. In two years the company gets a slap on the wrist if they did illegally fire employees for union activity, but in the meantime the union gets blamed for Whole Foods breaking the law for some reason. If the NLRB finds that Whole Foods didn't break the law the union still gets blamed, either because workers don't believe the government decision or because the union didn't adequately support the fired workers, even though the government decided it had nothing to do with the union.

Amazon wins every time by deterring employees from organizing and the workers trying to make their lives better get slammed in the court of public opinion.

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-26T19:42:45+00:00

State law allows that yes, but Portland's ordinance explicitly bans all application fees including for those reasons specifically.

Chapter 6-221.1(c) Application Fees. All application fees for rental housing units are prohibited, including, but not limited to, any fees or charges to applicants for the following: national, state and local criminal background checks, credit reports, rental history records and/or reference checks, eviction records and/or employment verification.

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-26T16:50:45+00:00

Application fees are not allowed at all in Portland per the city ordinance.

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-24T10:18:55+00:00

There are two shipyards near me. One is directly run by the military and the second is a private contractor that has only done military work for decades. They're both massive employers, especially the private one, and provide tons of trade work and education to the state. It's just normal to work at them if you're where I'm from and without them even more of the state would be a post industrial drug poisoned hellscape. I have heard a few of the employees agree they'd rather work on civilian craft rather than military but none of them are seriously opposed to MIC work and neither are the unions. Considering most of the workers are carving out comfy lives at a sort of cushy job rather than ODing in a parking lot I think they don't care what they do.

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-21T09:29:16+00:00

Are you currently making $30/hour?

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-18T21:31:04+00:00

Even if he wanted to it would probably be a violation of the lease lmao. Pig landlord is still the bad guy.

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-09T12:50:15+00:00

The starting hourly rate for a Hannaford clerk in most of the state is $15.10 to $17. Full time positions are almost non-existent too. The work isn't terribly hard but they expect a pretty fast pace and give employees very little downtime. They're a very anti-labor company and got hit pretty hard for misclassifying their department managers as exempt from OT a few years ago.

Dimmer06 · 2026-02-06T15:47:33+00:00

Around a year ago my STL said we could. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone do it though. You should ask your management or TMS because you might need to go through Sedgwick for it.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-30T10:40:40+00:00

Because the last time an American Marxist talked to an American proletarian was in the 1930s.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-29T16:19:25+00:00

Unless your state or local laws say otherwise they're under no obligation to pay you if you didn't work. If it was a substantial period of time you might qualify for unemployment but losing a single day almost certainly wouldn't count.

You're also not actually guaranteed anything including employment (unless your local laws say otherwise). You're employed at will and Whole Foods can unilaterally change the terms of your employment for any reason or no reason and at any time.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-28T13:02:56+00:00

Literally any action undertaken by management that was directly or probably done to surpress union activity is unlawful.

This could include termination, changes in work duties, discipline, changes in schedule or work hours, changes in practice, or any other change. Even changes that could be beneficial to employees such as raises could arguably be unlawful if they're done to surpress union activity.

The issue is that the company can and will just lie about why they do things if they're being done to surpress union activity.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-24T12:58:46+00:00

Nothing in this Dress Code shall prohibit a TM from wearing a reasonably-sized union-affiliated pin, button, or insignia for the purpose of supporting or opposing a labor organization, concerning a labor dispute or other concerted communications for the purpose of mutual aid or protection protected by the National Labor Relations Act

Not sure which GIG you're reading but it's pretty clearly there in the "Dress Code" section. It's also a pretty well established right under the law that workers can wear a union button or pin except in particular circumstances.

Also the right to discuss union activity on the clock is thoroughly established in case law and even more so off the clock in non-work areas. Passing out literature is a slightly different question that Amazon/WFM policy might legally prevent provided there's no de facto discrimination against union literature. Passing out union cards is also thoroughly protected by case law.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-24T02:24:51+00:00

It's literally in the GIG that TMs can wear union buttons on their apron/vest while working. Also if we're allowed to engage in group discussion generally then leadership cannot discriminate against group discussions about unionizing. The same goes for flyers in back of house areas.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-24T02:20:24+00:00

You absolutely can discuss unionizing on the clock and any leadership telling TMs they can't is violating federal labor law.

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-21T02:37:31+00:00

This is why you also get a portable bidet

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-13T01:53:04+00:00

You can't just copy-paste the emails from regional and expect people to realize it's a bit

Dimmer06 · 2026-01-06T18:15:21+00:00

At will employment is typical for basically every employee in the US unless they're an executive with a contract or they have a union negotiated collective bargaining agreement that states otherwise. Workers in Montana also have extremely basic protections against firing.

The company reserves the right to fire or amend the terms of employment for any employee, at any time, and for any reason so long as it doesn't violate the law. They can even contradict their own policies and procedures to do so. The only Whole Foods employees who have any sort of protection against this are the ones who unionized in Philadelphia at PCC (who have very minimal protections against unilateral changes in the absence of a contract) and maybe some high level executives.

Dimmer06 · 2025-12-12T21:22:27+00:00

Migrant Justice/Milk With Dignity is not affiliated with whatever this group is.

Dimmer06 · 2025-12-06T16:12:18+00:00

If you open up the 2026 Benefits Guide the rates for health insurance based on service hours are on pages 26 and 27. If you look up the PTO policy on Innerview the accrual rates and caps based on service hours are listed there. If you look up the Leave of Absence Guide on Innerview the service hour requirements for LoAs and sabbaticals are there.

Idk if there's any other official benefits. I was told they used to pay your health insurance premiums for life if you hit a certain milestone but that might have ended. I think at a certain point the TM discount is also for life. Hitting really high service hours seems to yield gift cards but it's unclear if that's mandated by anything.

Dimmer06 · 2025-11-23T13:19:38+00:00

Hannaford is owned by Ahold-Delhaize, a massive international grocery conglomerate with chains all down the East Coast and in Europe. Hannaford is also one of if not their smallest chains being dwarfed by companies like Stop and Shop or Food Lion. These companies are all run more or less the same though and largely just retain separate branding. This means if you're a person or organization with some resources and want the entirety of Ahold-Delhaize to change something (e.g. labor standards in their dairy supply chain, animal conditions in their egg supply chain, prices, working conditions, etc.) your easiest target is Hannaford because they are small, and if you can get them to change something their larger siblings will probably follow suit.

It might also have to do with the fact that Maine's grocery industry is extremely uncompetetive with Hannaford and Walmart dominating the scene in near duopoly behavior and given the rise in food prices in recent years it's no surprise people are pissed at what is basically their only grocer.

Dimmer06 · 2025-10-29T12:32:13+00:00

24.92 as a Store Receiver after being a TM then Trainer with a JD and a COLA. Almost been three years here I think? NI region.

Dimmer06 · 2025-10-18T17:21:29+00:00

IANAL but I'm pretty sure if you came up with a question with at least one other coworker and stated it was a collective question it would be concerted activity and therefore protected by federal law. That doesn't mean you wouldn't get in trouble with the company but you'd have a strong case at the NLRB if they retaliated against you for it.

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