A couple weeks ago, Philadelphia employees at Whole Foods Market declared their intention to unionize with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 after filing their papers with the National Labor Relations Board, writes Errol Schweizer for Forbes.

If successful, this would be the first unionized Whole Foods Market store in the company.

Past unionization campaigns occurred before; however, they succumbed to captive audience trainings and other effective union avoidance techniques.

Whole Foods’ industry leading pay, culture, and benefits also deterred employees from unionizing, until now.

Ed Dupree has been a produce clerk at Whole Foods Market for over 8 years and is a member of the organizing committee. He’s seen some changes over the years.

“You take on more and more of a workload, there are less team members. If you go just a couple years back towards the pandemic, I think my team had somewhere around 50 people. Previously it was upwards to like 60, 70,” Dupree said.

When asked what employees are hoping to get from unionizing, Dupree mentioned pay and benefits.

“It’s just the cost of living has gone up. And a lot of my co-workers are people that are trying to start their lives,” he said.

Read more about Whole Foods Market’s unionization efforts at Forbes.

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