Trader Joe’s First Union Shop Broke Labor Law, NLRB Judge Says

Trader Joe’s must compensate two workers for lost wages and rescind written warnings and negative evaluations of others after a federal labor board judge found it committed widespread legal violations at its first unionized location.

The grocer violated labor law by maintaining an unlawful workplace dress code, sending workers home for wearing union insignia, and making various other unlawful threats during the first campaign to organize a Trader Joe’s at a Hadley, Mass. store, according to National Labor Relations Board Administrative Law Judge Charles Muhl.

The location’s organization kicked off unionization drives at several other Trader Joe’s stores around the ...