A battle rages at a sprawling Whole Foods Market in Philadelphia. The roughly 300 employees will vote Monday on whether to form Amazon's first grocery union.
Several store workers said they hoped a union could negotiate for higher starting wages, above the current rate of $16 an hour. They also aim to secure health insurance for part-time workers and provide protection against being fired at any time.
There's also a broader goal: to spur an organizing wave across the grocery chain, adding to the industrial action among warehouse workers and delivery drivers that Amazon is already fighting.
“If all the different industries that make it work can demand a little bit more, have more control, have more of a voice in the workplace – that could be a start to taking away the power that Amazon has, or at least under control,” says Ed Dupree, an employee in the produce department. Mr. Dupree has been with Whole Foods since 2016 and previously worked in an Amazon warehouse.
Management sees things differently. “A union is not necessary at Whole Foods Market,” the company said in a statement, adding that it recognized employees' right to “make an informed decision.”
Workers said that since they made public their industrial action last fall, store managers had stepped up their surveillance of workers, hung posters with anti-union messages in breakrooms and held meetings that portrayed the unions in a negative light.
Audrey Ta, who fulfills online orders at the store, said she planned to vote in favor of unionizing with the United Food and Commercial Workers, but there was unrest among workers. She has stopped wearing her union pin at work.
“People keep their heads down and try to talk to avoid talking about it,” Ms. Ta said. “Management really pays attention to what we talk about.”
Whole Foods said it had met all legal requirements when communicating with employees about unionization.
UFCW Local 1776, which represents workers in Pennsylvania, has filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing Whole Foods of firing an employee in retaliation for supporting the union drive. The union also accused the chain of excluding the store's employees from a raise given to all its other employees in the Philadelphia area this month.
“They treat them differently,” said Wendell Young IV, president of UFCW Local 1776. “They discriminate against them for trying to form a union.”
Whole Foods denied allegations of retaliation. The company argued that it cannot legally change wages during the election process, and that it had postponed a wage increase until after the election to avoid the appearance that it was trying to influence votes.
A majority of the store's employees signed union permit cards last year before the union filed a petition for elections. But Ben Lovett, a staffer who has led the organization, said he expected the election to be close.
Whole Foods is the latest part of Amazon to deal with the prospect of a union. In 2022, workers on Staten Island voted to form Amazon's first union in the United States; it is now affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Amazon disputed the election results and has refused to recognize or negotiate with the union pending a lawsuit.
Delivery drivers, who work for third-party package delivery companies serving Amazon from California to New York, have also created campaigns with the Teamsters.
Rob Jennings, an employee in the prepared foods department of the Philadelphia store, has worked there for nearly two decades. He said he noticed a series of changes after Amazon bought the chain in 2017: a program that offered employees a share of the store's budget surplus was eliminated, part-time employees lost their health insurance and the workforce began to decline.
Although Whole Foods had never been a workers' paradise, Mr. Jennings said, “I have a fantasy about bringing back everything they took away.”
Whole Foods said in a statement that the discontinued profit-sharing program did not benefit all employees equally and that the company was instead investing in wages; that part-time workers lost the ability to obtain health insurance through the company and did not lose funded health insurance; that part-time workers receive other benefits, such as in-store discounts and a 401(k) plan; and that the company strives to keep the stores sufficiently staffed.
Khy Adams first knew the Philadelphia store as a high school meeting place. She had wanted to work there for years when she got a job supervising the hot food bar in August.
But she couldn't find the work-life balance she was looking for because management expected an unreasonable level of availability. She said she hoped a union could help improve conditions.
In addition to Amazon's resistance, Washington's political transformation could face hurdles. After the Biden administration embraces unions, President Trump is expected to appoint a new NLRB general counsel whose approach could make it harder for campaigns to succeed.
“Amazon has the machine behind it to extend this, to stop this, to make it the hardest thing for us to keep working toward,” Ms. Adams said of the unionization campaign.
