A union seeking to represent Trader Joe’s workers at a North Center grocery store notched a win in a hotly contested union election Tuesday. But Trader Joe’s said it plans to appeal the decision, a move that could stall the case indefinitely before the paralyzed National Labor Relations Board, which has not been able to issue decisions even in routine cases since President Donald Trump fired one of the board’s members in the early days of his presidency.
The Chicago Trader Joe’s workers voted 70 to 70 in a union election last April. For months, the union, Trader Joe’s United, and Trader Joe’s have fought over the validity of one outstanding ballot, which belongs to union-supporting Trader Joe’s worker Brandi Hewitt and which could lead to a victory for the union if it is opened and counted.
After a hearing last summer, the labor board’s representative in the case issued a report in favor of counting Hewitt’s ballot. The representative also recommended allegations by Trader Joe’s that the union had illegally interfered with the election be dismissed. Trader Joe’s then appealed the report.
In a decision issued Tuesday, the labor board’s regional director in Chicago, Angie Cowan Hamada, overruled Trader Joe’s objections to the union election and ruled that Hewitt’s ballot be counted.
In a statement, Trader Joe’s spokesperson Nakia Rohde said the company would appeal Tuesday’s decision.
“We filed objections based on credible claims of election interference shared with us by Crew Members in the store, and intend to appeal yesterday’s decision,” Rohde said. An appeal would send the case to the labor board in Washington D.C. for review.
Under typical circumstances, the board could, if it agreed with the regional director’s decision, order Trader Joe’s to bargain with the union. But the board presently cannot issue decisions at all, including in routine cases, because it has lacked a quorum since Trump fired member Gwynne Wilcox — in a move labor experts have described as illegal and which Wilcox has since sued over — last month. That means the Trader Joe’s case is likely to be stalled indefinitely before a board that is unable to rule on it.
A representative for the NLRB said the agency had no comment on the board’s lack of a quorum.
“It’s bittersweet,” Hewitt said in a phone interview with the Tribune. “I personally figured that this would be taken to the national board because they have the time, money, power to do so.”
Trader Joe’s has argued Hewitt was a temporary staffer on loan from a store in Maryland and therefore ineligible to vote in the union election. The union has maintained that Hewitt, who had transferred to the North Center store when she moved from the East Coast to Chicago, was always intended to be a permanent transfer. Seth Goldstein, general counsel for Trader Joe’s United with the law firm Goldstein & Singla PLLC, described the company’s repeated appeals as “frivolous.”
“My ballot at this point has been sitting in a box at the NLRB since last April,” Hewitt said. “My ballot deserves to be opened and deserves to be counted.”
In a statement, Rohde said that Trader Joe’s supports workers’ “rights to participate in free and fair elections to decide whether they want to be represented by a union or not.”
Goldstein described the company as trying to “take away people’s votes.”
“What right does Trader Joe’s and Morgan Lewis have to disenfranchise workers?” he said, referring to one of the law firms representing Trader Joe’s on the case.
The battle at the North Center grocery store comes amid great uncertainty about the future of federal labor law under the Trump administration.
The NLRB is the body that oversees union elections and investigates allegations of labor law violations for private sector employees throughout the U.S.
Under President Joe Biden, the board’s progressive general counsel, who was fired last month by Trump, instituted numerous policy changes that generally made it easier for workers to organize.
Trump’s firing of Biden’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, was expected. Last week, the agency’s acting general counsel rescinded some guidance memoranda issued by Abruzzo, in a move that was also expected. But Trump’s firing of board member Wilcox was unprecedented and potentially sets up a critical legal test regarding presidential powers over the agency.
Some companies, such as Amazon and Trump ally Elon Musk’s SpaceX, have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the NLRB’s structure, sometimes using the argument that the board’s members are unconstitutionally protected from firing by the president. Morgan Lewis also represents SpaceX in its lawsuits against the NLRB.
Rohde maintained Trader Joe’s has no intention of filing or joining a lawsuit against the NLRB.
The company did, however, echo arguments made by companies that have sued the agency at a labor board hearing last year during which it suggested that the structure of the board was unconstitutional.
Alec Plant, a union organizer and Trader Joe’s worker, said the union feels confident it will eventually end up at the table bargaining with the grocery giant, despite the uncertain future of the labor board.
“We’re confident eventually we’ll get there,” Plant said. “We have no idea what that path is going to look like.”
