Ruling finds illegal firing
Trader Joe’s Hadley worker was terminated
The scales tipped in favor of unionized Trader Joe’s employees in Hadley on Tuesday, when the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the company had illegally fired a union employee in Western Massachusetts and retaliated against organized stores by withholding retirement benefits.
The complaint “validates what we’ve known all along,” the independent union wrote Thursday in a news release. “Trader Joe’s is willing to act unlawfully and violate our rights as workers — even firing us — in an attempt to discourage organizing and protect their bottom line.”
Trader Joe’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Specifically, the board found that the company unfairly terminated Steve Andrade, a long-tenured employee, for his failure to remove a power tool from the premises and gave workers at union stores in Hadley and Minneapolis less-favorable retirement contributions recently, compared with non-union stores, according to the complaint.
An older version of the complaint also found merit in allegations that Trader Joe’s maintained a discriminatory uniform policy, prohibited workers from wearing union pins, interrogated workers, forced employees to attend unlawful “captive audience” meetings, and gave “false and misleading” information about negotiations with the union.
In response, the NLRB required that the company repay Andrade, offer him reinstatement in Hadley, and issue an official letter for distress caused by his termination.
“For 18 years I believed in the company’s stated values,” Andrade said in the release. “Sadly, what happened to me (and what has happened to many other crew members across the country) made it crystal clear that Trader Joe’s does NOT act with integrity, and will in fact use deception, lies, and bullying tactics to achieve its goals,” Andrade added.