The union drive serves as a test of the company’s values, workers said.
Scoopers in Burlington said co-founder Jerry Greenfield showed up briefly at the store on Sunday — an unusual occurrence — but he skipped a meeting where workers announced to management their intent to unionize.
“Collectively, we have come to embody Ben and Jerry’s slogan of ‘peace, love, and ice cream,’” they wrote in a letter addressed to Greenfield and co-founder Ben Cohen and delivered to management on Sunday. “Forming a union will ensure that present and future scoopers have irrefutable rights.”
The Burlington workers are joining Workers United, a scrappy union affiliated with the powerhouse Service Employees International United (SEIU). Workers United recently rose to prominence for winning union elections at about 300 Starbucks coffee shops across 36 states in a year and a half.
Ben & Jerry’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The workers’ push to unionize began around April 3, the annual Free Cone Day, when the company gives away free scoops of ice cream. According to union organizers, management took away the tip jar that day.
Ben & Jerry’s later returned it after workers protested, the organizers said. But the move to unionize quickly caught on throughout the store. In Burlington, organizers said all 37 scoopers have pledged their support. That’s well above the typical threshold in the United States, where at least 30 percent of eligible employees must sign on to qualify for a federally recognized union election.
Union leaders said their primary motivation is to have a seat at the table with management. Also at issue is management’s handling of multiple instances of drug use in the store bathroom, including an overdose last summer, as well as adding job duties without increasing pay, workers say.
“I think our workplace operates on the idea that you give 110 percent and that goes out to community and the people we service,” said Rebeka Mendelsohn, 22, a shift manager and caterer. “I just wish we were allowed to feel like we were part of business and the decision-making process.”
During the past year, the U.S. labor movement has seen an upsurge in workers filing for union elections, according to the National Labor Relations Board. Some of the most high-profile campaigns — such as Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and REI — have taken hold at companies that have branded themselves with a commitment to social justice.
These companies often hire young, college-educated workers with leftist politics. But many employers have taken outspoken stances against labor organizing, waging expensive, anti-union campaigns.
For its part, Ben & Jerry’s has not yet made its stance known on the new campaign at its flagship store, but in 1998, it challenged a unionization attempt led by its plant maintenance workers in Vermont that ultimately failed.
“An aggressive anti-union campaign would involve a huge amount of reputational risk for Ben & Jerry’s,” John Logan, a labor studies professor at San Francisco State University, wrote in an email, calling it “the archetypal progressive corporation.”
“Many of its [retail] workers … want to work there because of its progressive values,” he added.
According to union organizers, most of the employees are students at the University of Vermont (UVM).
Mendelsohn, a chemistry and English double major at the university, said she signed up to work for Ben & Jerry’s because of its commitment to social issues, such as defending Black Lives Matter and environmental justice. When the ice cream maker sued its parent company, Unilever, last year to block ice cream sales in Israeli-occupied territories, Mendelsohn, who is Jewish, felt proud.
“In the grand scheme of things, my employer is working toward something bigger,” Mendelsohn said. “And I see such a potential for a union for employees and staff.”
But Mendelsohn said she has also been disappointed by the company’s treatment of its employees and by incidents in the store, and she reached out to labor organizers in early April.
Burlington has long grappled with heavy heroin use and overdoses among its population.
In one case last summer, a drug user overdosed in the bathroom during Mendelsohn’s shift, she said. In other instances, she and other workers have had to clean up needles used for drugs that were left in a vintage Volkswagen bus where customers can take photos and around the store. Ben and Jerry’s responded to those incidents by closing the bathroom to all customers, the union organizers said.
But Mendelsohn said she wished management had taken other steps, noting that she is still not prepared to handle incidents that escalate with drug users in the store.
“Most of these overdoses happen at night when a manager isn’t present in the shop,” she said. “I can’t say Ben & Jerry’s should be responsible for fixing a drug epidemic, but I think there should be Narcan in the store and more serious training.”
On Sunday evening, the union organizers also asked management to adhere to a set of “free-election principles” for the organizing drive. Those include a pledge not to retaliate against pro-union workers; permission for workers to hold union-related meetings with staff if management holds union-related meetings with workers on company time; and a promise not to change wages and other working conditions to influence a worker’s stance toward unions.
“We are working with Ben and Jerry’s, not against it,” said Parker Kimberly, a pro-union shift manager and forestry major at UVM. “This is about us having a seat at the table. We’d love to be part of their conversations.”
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