Trader Joe’s Employees Cry Foul Over New Part-Time Work Policy

Managers at certain Trader Joe’s stores are pushing part-time employees to work a minimum of three days per week in a move that’s generated worker allegations of anti-union animus.

Since last fall, local store managers have been asking part-time workers to take on more hours as part of an effort to address hiring issues and ensure everyone is more engaged on the job, employees told Bloomberg Law. But some workers say it’s not a coincidence that the policy, which is being rolled out unofficially, comes amid growing unionization efforts.

The policy was crafted, at least in part, to target pro-union workers by discouraging them from continuing their employment with the grocery chain, the workers say.

“It is really a move to replace us and move people out by saying, ‘Hey, if you don’t want to work and have your schedule completely open, you can’t work here,’” said Sara Beth Ryther, an employee and union organizer at a Trader Joe’s in downtown Minneapolis.

The three-day minimum is especially “oppressive” for part-time workers with families that lack child care, Ryther said.

The new policy effectively ends the flexible schedules that part-time employees have used to attend school, take care of their family, or work full-time jobs outside the company, said Maeg Yosef, a longtime worker and union organizer at a Trader Joe’s store in Hadley, Mass.

“It is unfortunate that the company is pushing out fully trained and experienced crew members,” said Yosef, who received complaints about the new policy from part-time workers.

Trader Joe’s spokesperson Nakia Rohde didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on the workers’ anti-union claim.

But Rohde told Bloomberg Law in a statement that there’s no companywide three-day work policy for part-time workers. Instead, local Trader Joe’s managers have the discretion to set their employees’ work schedules.

Managers “are having conversations with Crew Members to share the nuance of crafting a schedule that reflects store needs, their needs and Crew Members’ engagement, rather than simply applying a rigid policy,’' Rohde said. “The ability to provide flexible scheduling for our Crew Members sets us apart from other retailers.”

‘Grasping for Straws’

Requiring part-time workers to take on more hours may disrupt the flexible schedule they previously had, but this is neither illegal nor prima facie evidence of anti-union animus, employment attorneys say.

“If there’s a policy that has been designed to discourage unionization and there’s evidence of that, that could form the basis of an unfair labor practice,” said Joshua Zuckerberg, co-chair of Pryor Cashman LLP’s labor and employment group.

But in this case, the policy “doesn’t seem to have an anti-union element to it,” Zuckerberg said. The workers would have to prove this is being driven by anti-union animus for it to hold water, he said.

The workers’ anti-unionization arguments “are a perfect example of grasping for straws,” said Robert Boonin, a management-side labor relations and employment law attorney at Dykema Gossett PLLC. Trader Joe’s might have a legitimate business reason for the policy, he said.

But Francisco Díez, a senior policy strategist at the Center for Popular Democracy, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the new informal policy is part of an effort to exert more control over workers.

Díez, whose organization advocates for pro-worker policies, pointed to employee allegations filed with the National Labor Relations Board that Starbucks Corp. violated labor law by slashing workers’ hours in response to organizing efforts.

“What we’ve seen around the country in the current wave of worker organizing is that employers are almost using any means available to them to try and interfere with the organization process. One of the most frequent ways in which we’ve seen attempts to control workers is through scheduling,” he said.

“We have seen situations where new workers get hired even when those hours could have been offered to existing workers. And that then leads to a change in the composition of workers in the workplace,” Díez added.

Union Difference

But having a union has set those workers apart from stores that haven’t organized.

Trader Joe’s can’t unilaterally implement the part-time work policy at its Hadley and Minneapolis stores—the only two so far that have voted to unionize—without bargaining.

Workers at a Colorado location withdrew their union petition shortly before a scheduled election last summer. But they’ve filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB accusing the company of interfering with unionization efforts there.

The California-based company, which operates more than 500 grocery stores across the US, denied claims of union busting when it shuttered a wine shop in New York City last summer after an organizing campaign was started there. A bid to unionize at a separate New York store failed months later.

Workers at the Minneapolis store recently staged a walkout after management unsuccessfully attempted to introduce the three-day minimum policy for part-time work there, Ryther said.

“We’re well within our right to do that,” she said. “For folks without union protection, this is a huge problem.”