Amazon’s Whole Foods cites Trump’s NLRB purge as grounds for rejecting union win
An Amazon Prime delivery van sits parked outside of a Whole Foods Market grocery store on August 26, 2024 in El Segundo, California.
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Whole Foods, the Amazon-owned grocery chain, has asked the National Labor Relations Board to overturn a union victory at a Philadelphia store, pointing to President Donald Trump’s recent ouster of several top officials at the agency.
Trump last week fired former NLRB chair Gwynne Wilcox and the agency’s top lawyer, Jennifer Abruzzo. Wilcox’s firing leaves just two remaining members on the five-member NLRB panel, which already had two vacancies at the time she was dismissed. Wilcox sued Trump on Wednesday, alleging her firing was a “blatant violation” of law.
With only two sitting members on the board, the NLRB lacks the necessary quorum to issue decisions on labor disputes, stymying a key function of the labor board.
Whole Foods is disputing the results of a January election at its Spring Garden, Philadelphia, store, where employees voted 130-100 in favor of joining the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The vote marked the first successful organizing effort at Whole Foods since Amazon acquired the upscale grocer for $13.7 billion in 2017.
In a filing submitted to the NLRB on Monday, Whole Foods argued that “in the absence of a Board quorum, the Regional Director lacks statutory authority to investigate objections or certify the results, or otherwise engage in representation case procedures, including investigating objections or conducting the objections process.”
The objection threatens to set up long legal negotiations and further delays to the start of negotiations on a collective bargaining agreement with workers and the UFCW.
Wendell Young, president of UFCW Local 1776, the chapter representing the workers, said in a statement that the union “fully expected Whole Foods to try to stall this process.”
“Amazon has a well-documented history of using baseless objections to undermine the rights of workers seeking representation, and this case is no different,” Young said. “Their goal is clear: they don’t want to bargain in good faith with their workers. But this fight is far from over.”
Whole Foods previously said it was “disappointed” by the outcome of the election. It also argued in the Monday filing that the NLRB “tainted” the results of the election by limiting the company from communicating its views on unionization. Last November, the agency ruled that captive audience meetings, or mandatory employee meetings typically called by employers during union campaigns, are unlawful.
Whole Foods also accused the UFCW in its objections of intimidating employees who supported the company.
The company told CNBC in a statement that the UFCW 1776 “illegally interfered” in its employees “right to a fair vote” at the Philadelphia store.
Amazon has also faced mounting labor pressure in it warehouse operations of late. Workers at Amazon’s sprawling Garner, North Carolina, warehouse will begin voting next week on whether to unionize. In December, Amazon delivery and warehouse workers, alongside the Teamsters union, held strikes at seven facilities during the peak holiday shopping season.
As part of her lawsuit, Wilcox is seeking an injunction for her immediate reinstatement to the board. She said her firing amounted to “an immediate and indefinite halt” to all of the NLRB’s regulatory activity.
— CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.
WATCH: Amazon Q4 earnings on deck
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The Federal Trade Commission asked a judge in Seattle to delay the start of its trial accusing Amazon of duping consumers into signing up for its Prime program, citing resource constraints.
Attorneys for the FTC made the request during a status hearing on Wednesday before Judge John Chun in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. Chun had set a Sept. 22 start date for the trial.
Jonathan Cohen, an attorney for the FTC, asked Chun for a two-month continuance on the case due to staffing and budgetary shortfalls.
The FTC’s request comes amid a push by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency to reduce spending. DOGE, which is led by tech baron Elon Musk, has slashed the federal government’s workforce by more than 62,000 workers in February alone.
“We have lost employees in the agency, in our division and on our case team,” Cohen said.
Chun asked Cohen how the FTC’s situation “will be different in two months” if the agency is “in crisis now, as far as resources.” Cohen responded by saying that he “cannot guarantee if things won’t be even worse.” He pointed to the possibility that the FTC may have to move to another office “unexpectedly,” which could hamper its ability to prepare for the trial.
“But there’s a lot of reason to believe … we may have been through the brunt of it, at least for a little while,” Cohen said.
John Hueston, an attorney for Amazon, disputed Cohen’s request to push back the trial date.
“There has been no showing on this call that the government does not have the resources to proceed to trial with the trial date as presently set,” Hueston said. “What I heard is that they’ve got the whole trial team still intact. Maybe there’s going to be an office move. And by the way, both in government and private sector, I’ve never heard of an office move being more than a few days disruptive.”
The FTC sued Amazon in June 2023, alleging that the online retailer was deceiving millions of customers into signing up for its Prime program and sabotaging their attempts to cancel it. Amazon has denied any wrongdoing, calling the FTC’s claims “wrong on the facts and the law.”
“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” former FTC Chair Lina Khan said at the time.
The FTC brought a separate case against Amazon in September 2023 accusing it of wielding an illegal monopoly. The agency alleged that Amazon prevents sellers from offering cheaper prices elsewhere through its anti-discounting measures. That case is set to go to trial in October 2026.
In the time since the FTC filed its cases, Khan has been replaced as the head of the FTC by Trump appointee Andrew Ferguson. Tech companies, which are the target of several regulatory agencies, have sought to curry favor with Trump, including Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos. He attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, and Amazon was among several tech companies to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee.
WATCH: Trump FTC Chair tells CEOs it will crack down on conduct or mergers that hurt Americans
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