Whole Foods Workers in Philadelphia Vote to Form Chain’s First Union

The union win comes as Amazon, which owns the grocery chain, is also fighting labor organizing in its warehouse and delivery businesses.

Workers at a Whole Foods Market in Philadelphia voted on Monday to become the first unionized store in Amazon’s grocery chain, opening a new front in the e-commerce giant’s efforts to fend off labor organizing in multiple segments of its business.

Employees at the sprawling Whole Foods store, in the city’s Spring Garden neighborhood, voted 130-100 in favor of organizing with the United Food and Commercial Workers union, the National Labor Relations Board said.

Store employees said they hoped a union could help negotiate higher wages, above the current starting rate of $16 an hour, and better benefits. Some longtime employees, who have been with Whole Foods since well before Amazon bought the chain in 2017, said reductions in workers’ benefits and cuts in staffing levels when Amazon took over, among other changes, had been sources of frustration.

But those leading the union campaign hinted at a broader goal: to inspire a wave of organizing across the chain, adding to union drives among warehouse workers and delivery drivers that Amazon is already combating.

“I expect others to follow, and that will increase the leverage that we have at the bargaining table,” said Ben Lovett, an employee at the Philadelphia store who has led the organizing. “We’ve shown them that it’s possible to organize at Amazon.”

The successful bid to form a union comes against a backdrop of what several workers have described as a campaign of intimidation from Whole Foods. They pointed to ramped-up monitoring of employees and anti-union messaging in the store since workers went public with their organizing efforts in the fall.