FreshDirect employees have reportedly become the latest retail workers to unionize after they ratified a collective bargaining agreement with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), according to Supermarket News. Approximately 1,800 employees will be represented by UFCW Local 342.
The FreshDirect workers include butchers, fish cutters, deli slicers and online order pickers across three NYC locations in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan. The digital grocery service delivers food to select markets in seven states, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.
“[UFCW 342] President Deana Abondolo and the Local 342 organizing department have been involved in this ongoing campaign for over 15 years,” said the union in a statement. “We are proud to say that on Thursday, April 14, 2022, the members of FreshDirect overwhelmingly ratified their contract. Welcome Fresh Direct members.”
FreshDirect employees had previously run unionization campaigns in the late 2000s, but those attempts failed. The recent success mirrors similar successful unionization efforts at Amazon warehouses, including at an Alabama warehouse that decidedly rejected unionization in 2021 but came close enough for a recount in March 2022, and Starbucks cafés, which have been seeing repeated success this year following two failed attempts in previous decades.
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