Workers at a Target store in Virginia file for union vote

NEW YORK — Workers at a Target store in Christiansburg, Virginia, filed paperwork Tuesday with federal labor regulators to hold a union election, joining a wave of union organizing at other retailers around the country.

Workers at the store, which employs about 100, are seeing their pay not keeping pace with surging costs for basics like food and rent, said Adam Ryan, who has been working at the Christiansburg store for five years and founded Target Workers Unite in 2019. Ryan also said that employees feel overwhelmed by the tasks they have to perform, such as loading trucks and filling out online orders.

“The cost of living is going up and their pay isn’t meeting that,” said Ryan, 34, who filed the petition with the National Labor Relations Board. This is causing a lot anxiety and stress. People are stretched too thin. They need more support and compensation. He said that the filing was caused by veteran workers at Christiansburg’s store who organized a petition in April asking for additional pay.

Ryan said he collected more than 30 authorization cards from workers at the store, about 30% of the staff, enough to meet the threshold mandated by NLRB, although the signatures still need to be reviewed. Ryan stated that he hopes other stores will join the effort, noting that Target workers have been watching labor organizing at other companies. The Minneapolis-based company has about 350,000 employees.

Target stated Tuesday in a statement that it is committed listening to its employees and creating a culture of trust.

“We want all team members to be better off for working at Target,” the company said. Target cited industry leading starting hourly wages of $15 to $24, expanded health care benefits, personalized scheduling and opportunities for career growth. Target stated that it raised the starting wages at its Christiansburg store and increased wages for long-tenured workers.

The Target workers filing comes as nearly 60 Starbucks locations around the country have voted to unionize.

The fledgling Amazon Labor Union scored a victory last month at an Amazon warehouse on New York City’s Staten Island, becoming the first U.S. Amazon warehouse to be unionized. But Amazon workers in a later election in a nearby facility rejected a union bid.

Meanwhile, the final outcome of a separate union election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, is still up in the air with several hundred outstanding challenged ballots hanging in the balance. In the next few weeks, hearings will be held to review those ballots.