From here, employees will seek to make changes to their current contract, gain better work conditions and fairer wages, though specifics are not being discussed at ?this time.
“This marks the end of our unionizing campaign,” member owner and employee Kaisa Goodman said. “But this is just the beginning of our contract campaign.”
Eighty percent of the more than 100 voters decided the union’s fate. Some of the votes were questionable, as not everybody who voted was qualified.
The number of questionable votes was so few, however, that a second election would not have made a difference to the initial outcome.
The election took place at the Courtyard Marriott instead of at one of Bloomingfoods’s five locations.
Goodman said the election was off-site to avoid any potential bias at the workplaces. The Courtyard Marriott was selected as a neutral and central location by both the employees and management.
Both sides, Bloomingfoods management and UFCW Local 700, thanked all parties for allowing a fair democratic process to take place.
“Our management team gives our thanks to the union leadership and the employees active in the organizing campaign for the orderly and respectful conduct and behavior that was exemplified in this process,” Bloomingfoods General Manager George Huntington said in a release from Bloomingfoods. “It is time to move forward with our relationship with the employees’ newly elected representative and to make our co-op even better.”
Scott Barnett, the organizing director for UFCW Local 700, also thanked Bloomingfoods management for a “fair and unfettered election.”
“They’re allowing workers to have a voice and move towards a collective bargaining ?agreement,” he said.
The issue as to whether the employees would be represented as a union began in August, when workers of the local food cooperative expressed their concerns to Barnett.
Among the concerns was a lack of transparency between the co-op’s board of directors and member ?owners.
Several member owners and employees at Bloomingfoods also said they felt the board was straying away from a co-op’s democratic values and principles.
Agreement seemed bleak early in the unionization dispute when Bloomingfoods had conversations with Nathan Baker, an anti-union consultant with Indianapolis-based law firm Barnes and Thornburg.
But after about a month of contention, an apparent agreement giving employees free reign over unionization was made at Bloomingfoods’s annual meeting ?Oct. 16.
On Oct. 31, the UFCW Local 700 and Bloomingfoods announced they would enter into an election agreement that Barnett said was “consistent with the progressive social values that Bloomingfoods holds towards its workers and the community.”
Moving forward, the employees will elect a negotiating committee and start their interest-based bargaining campaign, Barnett said.
Getting to the negotiating tables may take several months, though. Barnett said the employees and management would like to take some time off away from the union issue to cool off during the shopping season and to avoid conflicting with local retail profitability.
“Ultimately, this is a long-term relationship between Bloomingfoods and the UFCW,” Goodman said. “One thing has ended, but something bigger is about to begin.”
