Portland Grocery Workers Score Big First Contract Win

Workers at the upscale grocery chain New Seasons have won a first contract, after more than three years of organizing.

The contract covers 850 workers at the 10 stores in Portland, Oregon, that have joined the New Seasons Labor Union. The chain has 22 stores in Portland and Vancouver, Washington.

The union won major raises. The lowest-paid members will see an immediate raise of 16.5 percent. More than 95 percent of members will make more than $20 an hour, with the median wage rising to $23.37. New hires will start at a minimum of $19, which will rise with annual cost-of-living adjustments.

The three-year contract also lets cashiers choose to sit while they work, establishes just cause discipline and a grievance procedure, and maintains employer-provided health insurance for workers who work at least 24 hours a week. New Seasons had wanted to raise the threshold to 28 hours.

The union also won a guarantee of 12 hours’ rest between shifts. Workers will get two consecutive days off per week, and won’t be made to work more than five days in a row, except during a holiday blackout period.

Although New Seasons is a local chain, it has been owned by the South Korean retail giant E-mart since 2020. That the union won against an owner with very deep pockets makes the NSLU victory even more remarkable.

A GRASSROOTS EFFORT

Key to this victory was the union’s worker-led, store-by-store organizing model.

IWW members had run organizing campaigns at a few New Seasons stores in the past, but their momentum faltered over time. Still, a nucleus of worker-activists remained in the stores and connected to community organizations like Portland Jobs with Justice who had supported worker actions at New Seasons over the years.

In 2022, inspired by the success of the Amazon Labor Union and Starbucks Workers United, a handful of New Seasons workers came together in the backyard of a longtime activist, April St. John, and decided to form the New Seasons Labor Union. St. John has worked at New Seasons since 2005.

Starting with this core, NSLU members organized store by store to get cards signed and file for an election as an independent union.

Every store was in charge of its own organizing strategy. More experienced people shared their knowledge and advice. Without any money in the bank, workers at each store were responsible for figuring out how to fund their work, like printing sign-up cards, and how many cards they would need before filing for an election.

They found crucial help from knowledgeable volunteers who guided organizers through the byzantine rules of signing cards and filing for election, along with making sure the employer followed the rules.

Although union organizers generally recommend filing for an election with 70 percent of the workforce signed on cards, most of these stores filed with 30 to 50 percent. As St. John said, they wanted to move quickly toward filing because “we were flying under management’s radar and we knew it would take several months between filing for the election and actually holding the election, so we could continue to organize during that time.”

This is risky because, once a union drive goes public, management typically launches an anti-union campaign and often succeeds at peeling off some union support. But organizers didn’t want to lose their early momentum. At New Seasons, the gamble paid off.

BARGAINING DRAGS ON

Once they had won elections at nine stores, NSLU began bargaining in January 2023. The union got help from pro bono lawyer Katelyn Oldham.

Over the months and years that followed, the company dragged its feet and pretended to bargain. So NSLU began to focus on organizing union members to participate in actions in support of their bargaining demands.

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One flashpoint for organizing up to that point had been the company’s draconian attendance policy. Management announced it was relaxing the policy for the non-union stores, while refusing to make the change at the union stores.

That slap in the face led to action: at most of the unionized stores, workers organized a march on the boss with petitions.

As the company continued to drag bargaining out, NSLU Co-Chair Ava Robins says, “we had to move the fight to another level: to threaten company profits through strike action.”

A one-day strike on Labor Day 2024 was followed by a strike on the day before Thanksgiving. Spirited and effective picket lines turned many customers away. The union also called on its supporters to boycott New Seasons until a contract had been won.

NINE-DAY STRIKE

In response to the strikes, the company changed its bargaining strategy. Robins said management seemed to have concluded, “We’re not going to be able to wait this out without serious disruptions to our business. We need to get this union to sign a bad contract right away.”

A turning point came a few months later in January 2025, when NSLU led a nine-day strike. The strike began as a spontaneous walkout at one store when New Seasons fired Randy Foster, a 19-year employee and union activist, for working on his break because he helped a disabled co-worker to close out.

The strike spread to six other stores. By the time it ended, the independent union was running out of money to support members on strike, but the company had agreed to enter into mediation over the firing.

The strike demonstrated a high level of solidarity and extensive community support for NSLU. It also showed that the union would have to do even more to win a contract—and that it did not have the resources for an extended strike.

Member activist Aspen Heintze says many members concluded “if the company’s not even going to reinstate somebody after a week on strike to try to prove a point, then we need to be able to strike for a lot longer than that... That recognition changed a lot of people’s position on affiliation [with an established union].”

AFFILIATION WITH UE

Members who had been exploring possibilities of affiliation to a bigger union proposed that NSLU consider joining the United Electrical Workers (UE), which offered a $250,000 strike fund as well as funding for two paid organizers.

Some core leaders and activists had long resisted affiliation, wary that the worker-led organizing model they felt had been key to their success would not be supported by a traditional union.

Those skeptics were won over, according to St. John, because “UE offered us the things that we need to move forward. And they’re not trying to tell us how to do it with their staff and infrastructure—they are supporting the democratic institutions we’ve created within our own union.” The New Seasons Labor Union is now UE Local 1010.

Armed with a bigger strike fund, in November NSLU members voted to authorize an indefinite strike. With a strike deadline set for December, the company began to bargain seriously and finally moved on wages, health insurance, and time off.

Next on the agenda: enforcing the new contract, organizing the rest of the New Seasons stores, and looking to win an even better contract in 2028.

Johanna Brenner is the coordinator of the Northwest Labor Notes Organizing Committee in Portland, Oregon.