Apparently it’s OK to unionize but not to get rid of our labor union. We learned this lesson on Oct. 8, when the National Labor Relations Board dismissed our petition to hold a decertification election at the store where we work. The bureaucrats say our employer might have acted unfairly, but what’s really unfair is saving the union by denying our rights.
We’ve both worked at Trader Joe’s for 10 years. In 2022 our store became the first in the company to unionize. Both of us opposed it, but we were outnumbered: 45 of our fellow crew members voted to join Trader Joe’s United, while 31 of us voted against it and seven abstained.
But the union hasn’t been what many of our co-workers expected. The officers basically selected themselves. They then delayed negotiations with Trader Joe’s while forfeiting our annual bonus retirement contribution. Amid growing discontent in the store, the two of us attended a bargaining session in February 2023, which the union president invited all crew members to join. We were shocked at what we saw.
We thought the union would focus on things that matter, like wages and benefits. Instead, union representatives negotiated over things like “pronoun pins,” which the company already provides. They demanded that Trader Joe’s cover abortion and “gender-affirming care.” The company’s response: The health plan already covers that. Either the union negotiators were embarrassingly uninformed, or they were playing a political game with workers as the pawns. Either way, our team deserved better.
We wrote up what we saw at the bargaining session and posted it in the break room. Within hours, the union asked the store captain to take it down. He refused. We then showed up to the next bargaining session in April 2023, only for our own union to deny us entry and ask security to escort us from the building. Why don’t the people who have a legal duty to represent our interests want us to see what they’re saying and doing?
Our frustration kept building, so last November, we told our fellow crew members that we were gathering signatures to hold a decertification election. We need the support of only 30% of the bargaining unit to force another election. We thought this would be tough, since many of our colleagues told us they were afraid of union reprisals and would sign only if we kept their names secret. Yet by July of this year, 46% of our co-workers had signed our petition. We felt we had a real shot, especially since a majority of the crew members who initially voted for unionization have since left. In July, we filed our petition with the National Labor Relations Board.
Two months later, our hopes were dashed. The NLRB’s regional director dismissed our petition on grounds that Trader Joe’s is under investigation for unfair labor practices at our store. The company is accused of everything from having an “overly broad” dress code to giving one of our co-workers a “negative appraisal.” The union has also claimed that managers in our store made “threats,” though in our experience they did nothing of the kind.
We’re floored. Most of the allegations against the company took place before the initial unionization election. If Trader Joe’s was acting unfairly, which our experience disputes, why didn’t the NLRB intervene before we voted? What’s more, labor unions often file bogus complaints about unfair labor practices as a negotiating tactic. If the mere allegation prevents us from holding a decertification election, it’s hard to see an election ever moving forward. All union officers have to do is keep filing complaints, thereby trapping us in a union that a growing number of us want to ditch.
It’s hard not to conclude that the NLRB cares more about protecting unions than it does about workers’ rights. We haven’t merely met the threshold of support to force a decertification election; we’ve dramatically exceeded it. Surely if we have the right to unionize, we also have the right to get rid of our union. Until we’re allowed to hold that vote, our rights might as well not exist.
Remember I just posted on Trader Joe’s Woes. A few stories from Gateway Punditabout the Democrats helping the poorer and middle-class people… just joking:
The Cleveland Clinic is cutting their 2014 budget by $330 million and these budget cuts include job losses. The clinic has roughly 42,000 workers The layoffs are expected to be across the board, some workers including doctors will be losing their jobs or forced into early retirement. The company said they have not made any “overall layoffs” in the past 11 years and the majority of the 2014 budget cuts are due to the upcoming implementation of ObamaCare.
The Clinic issued the following statement:
“To prepare for healthcare reform, Cleveland Clinic is transforming the way care is delivered to patients. Over the past several years, we have had an ongoing focus on driving efficiencies, lowering costs, reducing duplication in services and enhancing quality to make healthcare affordable to patients.
Although we have made progress, we need to further reduce costs to the organization by $330 million in 2014. We are carefully evaluating all aspects of our system to accomplish this. Some of the initiatives include offering early retirement to 3,000 eligible employees, reducing operational costs, stricter review of filling vacant positions, and lastly workforce reductions.
The plan, as CBS explains, is to protect the company from rising health care costs. Now who will cover the costs? The employees.
In short, the move is to protect Walgreens from Obamaacre. “Rising health-care costs and a climate of change brought about by the new federal health law are prompting American corporations to revisit the pact they’ve long had with employees over medical benefits. … Aside from rising health-care costs, the company cited compliance-related expenses associated with the new law as a reason for the switch,” as the Wall Street Journal reports.
Interestingly, a couple months ago Walgreens announced that it would help “promote” Obamacare. “The nation’s largest drugstore chain is partnering with Blue Cross Blue Shield to promote ObamaCare before the new insurance exchanges open on Oct. 1. Walgreens and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) launched a website Wednesday and promised to distribute brochures about ObamaCare at Walgreens stores around the country,” the Hill reported in July.
Just a few months ago, Senator Rockefeller (D-WV), one of the key masterminds behind ObamaCare, warned it was a “train wreck coming”. And the Liberal Democrats put Americans on that train. But, have no fear, as the train (representing 1/6th of our economy) implodes, the Salesman in the White House will reassure us from his teleprompter that we’re imagining the pain.
Many companies are moving a large majority of their work force to part-time in order to stay in business:
This has the biggest proponents of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or, Obama-Care), the three biggest unions, up in arms. This from a previous post of mine:
…Labor unions are among the key institutions responsible for the passage of Obamacare. They spent tons of money electing Democrats to Congress in 2006 and 2008, and fought hard to push the health law through the legislature in 2009 and 2010. But now, unions are waking up to the fact that Obamacare is heavily disruptive to the health benefits of their members.
Last Thursday, representatives of three of the nation’s largest unions fired off a letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, warning that Obamacare would “shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”…
2) they will not be able to keep their health-care, as Obama promised.
And recently, at a very public meeting, the unions doubled-downed on the deleterious affects of the ACA.
You see, full time under Obama-Care is 30-hours, so many businesses are moving their full time employees to part-time in order to stay competitive and solvent. One example is Forever 21.
Because ObamaCare is nothing more than a wealth redistribution policy that forces the productive to pay for the non-productives’ Cadillac health plans (which include birth control), costs are about to explode. As a result, employers are desperate to cut the burden of their health care costs, which is why our economy is hardly creating any full-time jobs, and the part-time employees at Trader Joe’s just lost their health insurance benefits:
After extending health care coverage to many of its part-time employees for years, Trader Joe’s has told workers who log fewer than 30 hours a week that they will need to find insurance on the Obamacare exchanges next year, according to a confidential memo from the grocer’s chief executive.
In the memo to staff dated Aug. 30, Trader Joe’s CEO Dan Bane said the company will cut part-timers a check for $500 in January and help guide them toward finding a new plan under the Affordable Care Act. The company will continue to offer health coverage to workers who carry 30 hours or more on average. …
A current Trader Joe’s worker described the coverage she’ll likely lose as “one of the best parts about the job.” (The employee requested anonymity since she isn’t authorized to speak to the media.) She said she pays only $35 per paycheck, or $70 per month, for a plan that generally covers 80 percent of her medical costs, carries a reasonable $500 deductible and includes prescription drug coverage.
“There are several folks I work with who are there for the insurance as much as anything, mostly folks with young families,” she said. “I can say that when I opened and read the letter yesterday my reaction was pure panic, followed quickly by anger.”
Meanwhile, the American media treats those in the GOP attempting to defund the ruination of ObamaCare as extremist freaks.
Gateway Pundits story links out to a Forbes Magazine article talking about how the ACA hurts patients with diseases like Cancer (see WSJarticle on this). The WaPoarticle Gateway quotes from says this:
…companies typically offer them to stay competitive. A robust health plan can go a long way in wooing potential employees – especially when most of the market doesn’t offer part-time workers the opportunity to buy coverage.
This is important, because Trader Joe’s has gotten workers that WANT these benefits and work well to keep them. Trader Joe’s stays competitive this way. Now… not soo much, and their quality of worker will decrease slowly as more-and-more get the same benefits.
Another employer jumping into the 29-hours-or-less fray is SeaWorld, via the Orlando Sentinel:
SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. is reducing hours for thousands of part-time workers, a move that would allow the Orlando-based theme-park owner to avoid offering those employees medical insurance under the federal government’s health-care overhaul.
SeaWorld confirmed the move Monday in a brief written statement to the Orlando Sentinel. The company operates 11 theme parks across the United States and has about 22,000 employees — nearly 18,000 of whom are part-time or seasonal workers. It has more than 4,000 part-time and seasonal workers in Central Florida.
Under a new corporate policy, SeaWorld will schedule part-time workers for no more than 28 hours a week, down from a previous limit of 32 hours a week. The new cap is expected to go into effect by November.
All this doesn’t matter to some, because the new norm is “fairness.” For instance, when a health-care company (one of many*) lays off 100-workers due to the rising costs in the ACA, some Obama-Lemmings say it is fair:
Georgia Healthcare Company to Lay Off Over 100 Because of Obamacare
“We have confirmed more than 100 Emory health care employees are going to lose their jobs in part because of the Affordable (health) Care Act,” said a local anchor.
“I think it’s bad it’s affordable health care and people are losing their jobs,” said a man interviewed by the reporter.
“It’s sad. It really is,” said another man. “A lot of people are going to lose their homes and cars and everything they worked all their life for.”
(Editors commentary: The video at the link shows the above woman saying she thinks its fair — Its an Obama world — I wonder if she would have said the same thing if Bush was in office? And how would this opposition to Bush, then — according to the consensus of the legacy media — not be racist if speaking your mind about Obama is?)
Besides leading Democrats supporting Sarah Palin’s many year old [now] contention that there areDEATH PANELS in the ACA, Many more jobs will be lost and it is already tracking this direction. In one discussion on a friends FaceBook, I responded to a friend of his who didn’t appreciate the “meme” he posted:
The number is actually much higher than both the Meme portray, and the slanted HuffPo Puff piece. For instance:
GALLOP POLL/TECHNICAL ————————————–
….”If the small businesses’ fears are reasonable, then it could mean that the small business sector grows slower than what economic conditions otherwise would indicate. And small businesses have been a growth engine in the economy,” Friedman told CNBC.
Forty-one percent of the businesses surveyed have frozen hiring because of the health-care law known as Obamacare. And almost one-fifth—19 percent— answered “yes” when asked if they had “reduced the number of employees you have in your business as a specific result of the Affordable Care Act.”
The poll was taken by 603 owners whose businesses have under $20 million in annual sales.
Another 38 percent of the small business owners said they “have pulled back on their plans to grow their business” because of Obamacare.
Those are “some pretty startling answers,” Friedman said.
“To think that [nearly] 20 percent of small businesses have already reduced the numbers they have in their business because they’re concerned about the medical coverage is significant, and a bit troubling,” Friedman said.
ANECDOTAL I worked for Hughes Market for many years, then Ralph’s, and finally Whole Foods until my illness. I know some “old-school” market guys… and a manager I have known for over 2-decades said Ralph’s is going to be cutting hours as much as possible to 29 for their employees.
HORSES MOUTH I blogged on this a while ago, the three biggest unions which pushed Obama-Care (ACA). Here is a bit of commentarry and what Jimmi Hoffa wrote:
—————————————— Labor unions are among the key institutions responsible for the passage of Obamacare. They spent tons of money electing Democrats to Congress in 2006 and 2008, and fought hard to push the health law through the legislature in 2009 and 2010. But now, unions are waking up to the fact that Obamacare is heavily disruptive to the health benefits of their members.
Last Thursday, representatives of three of the nation’s largest unions fired off a letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, warning that Obamacare would “shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”
The letter was penned by James P. Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; Joseph Hansen, international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union; and Donald “D.” Taylor, president of UNITE-HERE, a union representing hotel, airport, food service, gaming, and textile workers.
“When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act,” they begin, “you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat…We have been strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also been strong supporters of you. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure this vision. Now this vision has come back to haunt us.”
[….]
What surprises me about this is that union leaders are pretty strategic when it comes to employee benefits. It was obvious in 2009 that Obamacare’s employer mandate would incentivize this shift. Why didn’t labor unions fight it back then?
In that same posting I list some startling facts from the Chamber of Commerce, who from their poll said that 74% of small businesses will fire workers, or cut hours under Obamacare. In other words, the left is hurting those it claims to care about — the working poor — more than it is helping them. A good book on this and other economic issues is Arthur Brook’s, “The Road to Freedom: How to Win the Fight for Free Enterprise.”
So Tom, your Meme didn’t go far enough. And J.C., the Huff Puff piece was weak.
I added an afterthought to the discussion:
An after thought. Since the DNC leadership has said — recently — the goal is single-payer… the question becomes this then: “what other area of life would a person want single payer in?” The airlines? Fast-food? Grocery stores? Car dealers? Education? Gyms?
In other words, why would someone rejects a single airline, a single grocery-store (sorry weekend BBQ’ers, no more carne-asada from Vallerta), etc. — where competition drives prices down and offers in the best way (the markets supply and demand) what customers want… but reject all that for a system that is failing in Canada, Britain, and the like?
It seems counter-intuitive that the left likes to break up large companies/corporations that get too big, and speak about the “evils” large companies do to the consumer, but then want single-payer. Odd indeed.
NBC isFINALLYtracking with some of the above… why not the electorate?
* (RPT) …Like medical giant, Stryker, one of Obama’s biggest financial backers, laying off almost 1,200 workers to prep for Obama-Care, and the falling revenue (33%) of the Californian government showing in the the micro what higher taxes and more regulation does to the engine of the economy. Here are more stories of failure, and how these higher taxes will hit the retired folks that worked hard their whole lives, just to see it disappear. Google and Microsoft are two of Obama’s largest financial backers (Bloomberg):
The company avoided about $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011 by shifting $9.8 billion in revenue into a Bermuda shell company, almost double the total from three years before, filings show.
Governments in France, the U.K., Italy and Australia are probing Google’s tax avoidance as they seek to boost revenue. Schmidt said the company’s efforts around taxes are legal.
We pay lots of taxes; we pay them in the legally prescribed ways,” he said. “I am very proud of the structure that we set up. We did it based on the incentives that the governments offered us to operate.”
The company isn’t about to turn down big savings in taxes, he said.
“It’s called capitalism,” he said. “We are proudly capitalistic. I’m not confused about this.”
[….]
Google’s overall effective tax rate dropped to 21 percent last year from about 28 percent in 2008. That compares with the average combined U.S. and state statutory rate of about 39 percent.
Costco also was a huge supported of Obama and is borrowing money to avoid paying higher taxes on it now (WSJ):
When President Obama needed a business executive to come to his campaign defense, Jim Sinegal was there. The Costco COST +1.92% co-founder, director and former CEO even made a prime-time speech at the Democratic Party convention in Charlotte. So what a surprise this week to see that Mr. Sinegal and the rest of the Costco board voted to give themselves a special dividend to avoid Mr. Obama’s looming tax increase. Is this what the President means by “tax fairness”?
Specifically, the giant retailer announced Wednesday that the company will pay a special dividend of $7 a share this month. That’s a $3 billion Christmas gift for shareholders that will let them be taxed at the current dividend rate of 15%, rather than next year’s rate of up to 43.4%—an increase to 39.6% as the Bush-era rates expire plus another 3.8% from the new ObamaCare surcharge.
More striking is that Costco also announced that it will borrow $3.5 billion to finance the special payout. Dividends are typically paid out of earnings, either current or accumulated. But so eager are the Costco executives to get out ahead of the tax man that they’re taking on debt to do so.
[….]
To sum up:Here we have people at the very top of the top 1% who preach about tax fairness voting to write themselves a huge dividend check to avoid the Obama tax increase they claim it is a public service to impose on middle-class Americans who work for 30 years and finally make $250,000 for a brief window in time.
If they had any shame, they’d send their entire windfall to the Treasury.
1) On a dark street, a man draws a knife and demands my money for drugs;
2) Instead of demanding my money for drugs, he demands it for the Church;
3) Instead of being alone, he is with a bishop of the Church who acts as the bagman;
4) Instead of drawing a knife, he produces a policeman who says I must do as he says;
5) Instead of meeting me on the street, he mails me his demand as an official agent of the government.
If the first is theft, it is difficult to see why the other four are not also theft.
It must be nice that these large corporations that pushed for Obama-Care (laughably the “Affordable Care Act”) have the ability to get loans to help buffer against the costs of it. Their smaller mom-and-pop competition that bites into their profits? Not so much. One way to corner more of the market:
