Stand With Trader Joe's Workers!
sign.moveon.org
Trader Joe's is a company that carefully cultivates a progressive reputation. But over the past few years, we have seen the company culture shift from a workplace with incredible pay, benefits, and atmosphere, to a company with increasing turnover, declining benefits, and stagnating wages. The pandemic put those changes into stark relief as “essential” workers everywhere were asked to risk their health in order to keep the economy going. These two factors—the company’s internal changes...
  • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    33·
    1 year ago

    Sorry, explain to me US labor laws.

    Is there no recourse for union busting and obvious retaliatory firings like this? I thought there was some modicum of protection for certifying a union, at least federally.

    • LetMeEatCake@lemmy.world
      28·
      1 year ago

      In theory it’s exceptionally illegal to curtail unionization efforts.

      In practice, the law has been whittled away by decades of conservative judiciary decisions and weak department of labor enforcement.This isn’t helped at all by the balance of power.

      Companies can afford to scare off some degree of workers, especially at the lower end of the salary range. Big businesses can survive shutting down a store or losing business at locations indefinitely. Bug businesses can afford expensive lawyers and to indefinitely stay in litigation over union busting efforts.

      For workers, it’s a completely different proposition. Is Walmart or Home Depot or Starbucks going to want to hire someone that is actively suing another major corporation for anything at all? It’s even worse if it’s labor rights related, but just suing them in the first place is going to make it a struggle to find employment at a lot of places. That’s even pretending they can find & afford lawyers. Or that they can handle the transition period from job A to job B even if it isn’t difficult to find job B.

      These businesses hold all the cards and they know it. You see similar thinking, though different details, behind Hollywood’s decision to just try and wait out the striking writers and actors. They can survive losing billions of dollars in income a year from now with unmade projects; striking workers will struggle to get by with no salary.

    • treefrog@lemm.ee
      13·
      1 year ago

      If they get sued for it, they’ll probably settle for less money than they figure they’ll lose if employees unionize.

      I’m currently sueing a major corporation for violating labor laws and they asked for mediation (which means they want to settle and keep it out of court). I didn’t even hire a lawyer. Just lodged a complaint with my state department of labor and it went from there.

    • Declared0978@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      IANAL - anecdotally businesses here ask forgiveness rather than permission, and penalties are a pittance. They usually do not even have to admit guilt in court. An individual may win their case, but their advasary has its own dedicated legal department and comparatively infinite resources.

  • Millie@lemm.eeEnglish
    131·
    1 year ago

    I like to picture the Aldi brother as like this humanitarian filled to the brim with compassion who just wants to bring people good affordable food and dignity at work and the Trader Joe’s brother as basically Snidely Whiplash in like a Northface vest with cargo shorts twirling his mustache about his evil grocery schemes.

  • ivanafterall@kbin.social
    11·
    1 year ago

    Doesn’t this sorta destroy their whole image they worked so hard to promote and build their entire company around?

    Huh.

    • parrot-party@kbin.social
      11·
      1 year ago

      Yep. They billed themselves and chill and employee focused. Hence the “relaxed” dress codes and atmosphere. Turns out, they’re just another corporate pig hiding behind some cheap makeup.

    • Pacers31Colts18@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      1 year ago

      We don’t shop there a ton cause it’s a bit of a drive. Any Trader Joe’s we have been to has awesome customer service and I like their selection.

      Sucks to hear this. I’ll never go there again.

  • uphillbothways@kbin.social
    6·
    1 year ago

    Fuck Trader Joes.

    Their fucking cheese always molds like two days after you get it home, because they recut it in unsanitary warehouses. And if you do the math, their weird package sizes are consistently a bad deal for the consumer. They are a scam organization. Should be shut down.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    4·
    1 year ago

    Aldi and Trader Joe’s share a weird corporate relationship, but you should know that Aldi is just as anti-union. You will not find a unionized Aldi.