Whole Foods workers in Philadelphia vote to form Amazon-owned grocery store’s first union
An Amazon Prime delivery van sits parked outside of a Whole Foods Market grocery store on August 26, 2024 in El Segundo, California.
Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images
Whole Foods employees at a Philadelphia store voted to form a union Monday night, marking the first successful organizing campaign at the Amazon-owned upscale grocer.
Store workers cast 130 votes in favor and 100 votes against joining the United Food and Commercial Workers union, a spokesperson for the UFCW said. The store, which is located in Philadelphia’s Spring Garden neighborhood, employs roughly 300 workers.
The vote is the latest instance of Amazon workers putting pressure on the company to deliver higher wages and safety improvements. Amazon has faced an upswing in organizing among its warehouse and delivery workforce in recent years. The company has argued its employees don’t need unions, which stand to disrupt the control it has over its workforce.
Staffers are hoping that a union will help them negotiate for higher wages, improvements to their schedules and secure “a fair workload that doesn’t leave us burned out,” according to a UFCW webpage detailing the campaign. Employees at the store filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board in November.
UFCW and some of the store’s employees in November said that management at Whole Foods engaged in an “aggressive anti-union campaign” after they filed for a union vote. UFCW filed a number of unfair labor practices with the NLRB over Whole Foods’ conduct during the union drive.
“This fight is far from over, but today’s victory is an important step forward,” Wendell Young, president of UFCW Local 1776, the chapter representing the workers, said in a statement. “We are ready to bring Whole Foods to the bargaining table to negotiate a fair first contract that reflects the workers’ needs and priorities.”
Whole Foods said in a statement that it was “disappointed” by the outcome of the election, adding that it offers “competitive compensation, great benefits and career advancement opportunities” for employees.
“We are committed to maintaining a positive working environment in our Philly Center City store,” the company said.
Whole Foods has largely operated as an autonomous subsidiary of Amazon since it was acquired for $13.7 billion in 2017. But more recently, Amazon has sought to bring Whole Foods closer. The company on Monday tapped Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel for an expanded role leading its worldwide grocery business, which includes its Fresh supermarket chain, online grocery service and Go convenience stores.
The Monday vote in Philadelphia marks the first successful union campaign at a Whole Foods since it was acquired in 2017.
Employees at a Whole Foods store in Madison, Wisconsin, voted to join the UFCW in 2002, but employees at that store dissolved the union in 2003.
The labor victory comes as Amazon has faced a groundswell of union activity among its warehouse and delivery workforce in recent years. Employees have sought to unionize to obtain higher wages and improvements to working conditions.
Amazon has disputed criticisms from its employees, lawmakers and advocacy groups that its breakneck pace of work has led to high injury rates among its frontline workers. It’s also pushed back on complaints that it has engaged in union-busting activity. Amazon last year joined SpaceX and Trader Joe’s in arguing that the NLRB is unconstitutional. The NLRB has accused Amazon of violating federal labor laws in several cases.
The company employees at a Staten Island, New York, site in 2022 formed the company’s first union at a U.S. warehouse, though they have struggled to negotiate a contract. The group voted to affiliate with the Teamsters last June.
Workers at an Amazon warehouse in North Carolina are slated to hold a union election next month.
(L-R) Priscilla Chan, CEO of Meta and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, and Lauren Sanchez attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th US President in the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg praised the Trump administration for backing Silicon Valley on a call with investors, adding that 2025 will be big for “redefining” the company’s relationships with governments.
“We now have a U.S. administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning and that will defend our values and interests abroad,” Zuckerberg said Wednesday. “I am optimistic about the progress and innovation that this can unlock, so this is going to be a big year.”
Meta on Wednesday also agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit with President Donald Trump, according to NBC News. Trump sued Meta after the company suspended his Facebook and Instagram accounts following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Zuckerberg and Meta have made several public efforts to smooth over relations with President Donald Trump since his victory in November. The company donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund late last year, weeks after Zuckerberg dined with him privately at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Earlier this month, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would eliminate third-party fact-checking to “restore free expression” to the company’s platforms. He said the fact-checkers had been “too politically biased” and “destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.”
The move was widely recognized as a nod to Trump, as he and other Republicans have long claimed that Meta’s platforms like Facebook and Instagram censor conservative views. Zuckerberg and Trump have had an especially rocky relationship in the past, as Trump has previously threatened the tech executive with life in prison.
The company also elevated Joel Kaplan, former White House deputy chief of staff under President George W. Bush with longstanding ties to the Republican Party, to its chief policy role earlier this month.
Zuckerberg’s public concessions appear to be earning him some good will, as he attended Trump’s inauguration alongside other tech moguls like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos this month.
Shares of Meta were up slightly in extended trading Wednesday after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street’s expectations on top and bottom lines.
–CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report
WATCH: Meta beats on top and bottom lines, stock slips on Q1 revenue guidance
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, demonstrates the Meta Quest Pro during the virtual Meta Connect event in New York on Oct. 11, 2022.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta continues to lose billions of dollars developing the virtual reality and augmented reality technologies needed to underpin the nascent metaverse.
The social media giant reported fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday and said its Reality Labs unit recorded an operating loss of $4.97 billion while generating $1.1 billion in sales. Analysts were projecting that unit to log a fourth-quarter operating loss of $5.4 billion on $1.1 billion in sales.
Reality Labs is Meta’s unit that makes the Quest family of virtual-reality headsets and Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg kick-started his company’s VR endeavors in 2014 when it acquired the startup Oculus for $2 billion. Since then, Zuckerberg has characterized VR and AR as central to his plans to develop the futuristic digital world known as the metaverse, which he has said represent the next major computing platform.
Wall Street has questioned Zuckerberg’s metaverse investment. Reality Labs has tallied an operating loss of more than $60 billion since 2020, as of Meta’s fourth-quarter earnings report.
Meta last week said it would invest between $60 billion and $65 billion in 2025 capital expenditures to expand its computing infrastructure related to artificial intelligence. Zuckerberg has previously said AI is core to the company’s metaverse efforts, including its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Meta develops that device with France-based EssilorLuxottica.
The social media company last year also unveiled its Orion prototype AR headset that is capable of overlaying digital objects on top of a person’s real field of view.
Meta released its latest VR headset, the $299 Quest 3S, during its September Connect event and pitched the device as a way for people to watch movies, play games and workout in VR.
Other tech companies are also investing in VR and AR.
Apple’s Vision Pro headset went on sale in the U.S. in February 2024 with a starting price of $3,499, and in December, Google and Samsung said they were working on a VR and AR device dubbed Project Moohan that will be available to buy in 2025 for an undisclosed price.
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