PORT TOWNSEND — Port Townsend Food Co-op employees voted against unionization, a narrow four-vote margin among more than 80 employees who were eligible to vote.
Forty-one employees voted against unionization on Wednesday while 37 voted in its favor.
Only eight people who could have voted didn’t, said Beers, an employee who works in the co-op produce department and goes by their last name.
Organizers of the unionization efforts expressed a mix of surprise, disappointment and exhaustion.
“We had a lot of really good conversation with people and we had a lot of people committed to yes votes,” Beers said. “(I’m) just a little surprised. We were hopeful, we had cautious optimism, but we weren’t cocky about it. We knew this was a possibility.”
“I wasn’t surprised, I expected that it would be close either way,” said George Sawyer, a co-op cashier. “Of course, I was disappointed. After working on this since August, well, disappointed and exhausted.”
While he was not surprised by the outcome, Sawyer said he was surprised by some employees’ response to the unionization efforts going public. He said some did not believe some of what was being said about unsafe work environments and unfair treatment of employees.
Following the vote, Beers said they feel some concern about retaliation. Sawyer said that while he sees the co-op’s management as having a history of retaliation, representatives from United Food and Commercial Workers 3000, the union that would have represented co-op workers, said it is unlikely there will be retaliations and there would be protections.
“The co-op respects and accepts the results of the election and will continue to work with our employees, member-owners, and the community to make the store a great place to work and shop,” General Manager Kenna Eaton said by email. “We acknowledge there were strong feelings, both for and against unionization, and we will continue to listen to both viewpoints as we move forward.”
Beers said concerns around changes in health care may have been a leading factor for employees who voted against unionizing.
“The process is pretty open-ended,” Beers said. “It’s not like we could make guarantees about things when it comes to if we keep the same health care we have or if we go to a more affordable plan. Those things would be voted on by the workers in the future. I think that gave people pause because, the devil you know type of thing with health care in this country.”
Sawyer corroborated, saying uncertainty about the future of health care may have been a deciding factor.
“People said, ‘If the union wins, what’s our health care going to be?’” Sawyer said. “The answer is, ‘It’s going to be what we negotiate, from the options we’re offered, the one we like best,’ which in some sense is a very vague answer.”
UFCW 3000 represents employees at a number of local businesses, Sawyer said.
“So what people did was they called up their friends who worked at QFC or Safeway or wherever and said, ‘Hey, you’re with UFCW 3000, what health insurance do you have?’” Sawyer said. “A number of them had health insurance through Kaiser, which is based in Poulsbo.
“There was a fear that it would be mandatory that we would get this insurance and mandatory that we would have to drive to Poulsbo,” Sawyer said. “First of all, there’s no mandatory insurance. If among the options the existing health insurance was the best, that’s what the negotiating team would have recommended and probably the employees would have agreed to.”
Also, Sawyer said Kaiser’s policy does not require insured parties living more than a certain number of miles away to go to Poulsbo.
Sawyer said there was a fear that in an adversarial negotiation, employees would end up with less than they already have.
Internal emails and a blog post, published by Eaton, framed the unionization as being driven by UFCW, Beers said. The election was led by employee efforts, they added.
Beers said they believe some who voted no may have voted in favor of unionization if they had attended organizing meetings and taken the time to clarify any confusion or concerns.
Beers said that some people who opposed the union have expressed interest in organizing around improving employee work conditions.
“So I’m excited to see if those folks pick up the torch and have meetings and come up with solutions,” Beers said. “I think a lot of us would like to be a part of that, ’cause it does take input from everyone.”
“I was approached by one of the very prominent anti-union people about how we could work together going forward, which was very encouraging,” Sawyer said.
Had the union been formed, one of the first things that would have happened would have been a detailed survey of the employees, asking them what they wanted to be negotiated in their contracts, Sawyer said.
“Sort of a ranking of what was most important,” Sawyer said. “One of the things proposed is that we do a survey like that among the employees to see what people think are the most important issues.”
It is unclear what role, if any, management would play in such a survey, Sawyer said.
“It’s not clear what management’s attitude would be about this,” he added.
Sawyer said he plans to inquire to see what kind of support and organization there is behind those potential efforts.
Co-op Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reports with data for workplace injuries requiring time off show that three employees out of 107 experienced workplace injuries in 2023 and eight out of 101 in 2024. National averages for supermarkets are 1.8 in 100, Sawyer said. Numbers in 2024 were five times the national average, Sawyer concluded.
Beers said they hope to maintain certain elements that they appreciate about the workplace.
“We want to keep the co-op a lively, vibrant place, where we are allowed to be ourselves and be casual with customers, provide really great customer service and really great products,” Beers said. “I think there’s just a lot of anxiety about those things changing.”
Sawyer said the goal of unionization efforts was to make the co-op a better place, and that it was done by people who care about the co-op and its success.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
