A Trader Joe’s Worker Says She Was Fired for Organizing a Union. We Spoke to Her.
The latest union hot spot is a Trader Joe’s in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As at union drives at companies like Starbucks and Amazon, workers say Trader Joe’s has fired a key organizer for union activism. We talked to the fired worker about the campaign.
Jaz W., a worker and union organizer at the Williamsburg location of Trader Joe’s in New York, was fired on Friday. (Mike Mozart / Flickr; courtesy of interviewee)
Workers at the Trader Joe’s store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, announced yesterday that they are unionizing. If they win their upcoming election to affiliate with Trader Joe’s United, an independent, worker-led union, they will be the company’s third store in the United States to win official union recognition.
While the wave of youth-led workplace organizing continues to spread, so too has union busting. Last Friday, the day after management in Williamsburg announced it knew about the new unionization effort, Trader Joe’s fired Jaz W., a twenty-nine-year-old black worker and native Brooklynite who has played a key role in the organizing efforts. Following workers’ informational picket in front of the store on Sunday to demand Jaz be reinstated and the launch of a GoFundMe to support workers like her, Jacobin’s Eric Blanc sat down with her to discuss these events and the reasons why Trader Joe’s workers are unionizing.
Eric Blanc
What’s it like working at Trader Joe’s? The company portrays itself as a good place to work and, anecdotally, the vibe of workers generally seems positive when you shop there.
Jaz W.
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