UFCW 21 is welcoming some of our newest members—grocery workers displaced by the December closure of New Seasons Market’s Ballard store.

New Seasons announced in December that it would close the Ballard store and leave the Seattle market, where it had previously committed to open two to three stores per year. The good news is many New Seasons workers are moving over to union stores, including Metropolitan Market and PCC. In fact, the company’s Mercer Island store will transition to Metropolitan Market in the spring. Later this year, PCC will open at the Central District location that New Seasons leased and furnished but never opened.

New Seasons is a Portland-based natural foods grocery chain with a record of anti-union activity. Naturally, UFCW 21 members were concerned when the company announced an ambitious Puget Sound expansion in 2015.

Our concerns intensified when New Seasons competed aggressively with Metropolitan Market for the Mercer Island location, a former Albertsons store. At the time, unionized Metropolitan Market and anti-union New Seasons were both owned by the same private equity firm—Endeavour Capital. So New Seasons’ competition with Met Market looked to us like an attempt by Endeavour Capital to weaken the union and undercut our contracts.

Over the past four years, UFCW 21 and our community partners repeatedly advised New Seasons that it would be welcomed in Seattle if it committed to respect workers’ rights, meet area standards, and address concerns about its role in gentrification and displacement in the Central District. The company dismissed our advice and even hired an aggressive union buster to counter worker organizing in Portland.

UFCW 21 is committed to doing everything we can to support a successful transition for all New Seasons workers. And we are also encouraging PCC to work with Central District community leaders to ensure the 23rd and Union store reflects and respects the historic African American population of the Central District.

Are you a New Seasons worker with questions about moving over to a union store, or need help with job transition? Please call Marc Auerbach at (206) 436-6519.