Employees of the Whole Foods grocery store in Philadelphia voted to unionize on Monday in a narrow victory.
This is the first union for the Amazon-owned store. It came down to a narrow margin of 130 workers voting to join the United Food and Commercial Workers while 100 voted against it. This union also represents about 835,000 workers from Kroger, Albertsons-Safeway, Giant, Stop & Shop, Raley’s, Piggly Wiggly, and ShopRite.
“By starting a union at Whole Foods, we’ll be able to negotiate contracts that give us higher wages, better schedules, and a fair workload that doesn’t leave us burned out,” the UFCW website reads. “We have seen over recent years that Whole Foods has no problem taking away things like hours and benefits that brought us to work here in the first place. With a union contract, they can’t do that without bargaining with us over those changes first.”
Whole Foods remains “committed to maintaining a positive working environment in our Philly Center City store,” per its statement, but also expressed it was “disappointed” by the election results. According to the grocer, it offers “competitive compensation, great benefits, and career advancement opportunities” to all its staff members.
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Only one other Amazon facility has successfully unionized. The Staten Island Amazon warehouse where 5,000 workers voted to unionize in 2022 in what was initially an independent union. Last year, it opted to join the Teamsters when it didn’t make gains with the employer and subsequently lost support from its members.
UFCW continues to solicit further union elections at more Whole Foods locations.
