Story and photos by Pete Shaw
Workers at the Arbor Lodge New Seasons’s grocery store at 6400 North Interstate Avenue walked off the job for the second day in a row on Wednesday January 29. According to the New Seasons Labor Union (NSLU), the Unfair Labor Practice strike was again called because Randy Foster, who has been employed at New Seasons for 19 years and is the treasurer of the NSLU, was “unjustly fired.” The union is demanding Foster’s immediate reinstatement, and it will continue striking until this demand is met. As of Thursday morning, the union has called for another strike, starting at 2 PM.
On Tuesday, Wednesday’s would-be shoppers were met at both entrances to the store by picketing workers and community members acting in solidarity. Passing vehicles honked in support, and would-be shoppers chose to spend their money elsewhere. The parking lot was soon down to a few cars, and at 4:11 PM, just a little over an hour after the picket lines formed, one of the store’s managers put signs on the doors reading that the store was closed for the day. Tuesday’s strike also resulted in the store’s closure.
“I have been an employee with New Seasons Market ever since the company was young and truly locally owned,” said Foster. “And after all that time, with a spotless attendance and discipline record, over the last couple of months I have been written up for a couple of situations that ultimately revolved around me trying to support a disabled co-worker of mine. On paper there’s merit to what they wrote me up, but basically I was just trying to do the right thing by my co-worker, and after all of this time I just got summarily fired yesterday because of my attempts to help my disabled co-worker, even though they in small ways they violated company policy.”
That co-worker, Mikey, has type 1 diabetes and is visually impaired. He has been a New Seasons employee for ten years.
Foster described the reason for his first write-up. “I was trying to help my co-worker with a medical issue that involved his type 1 diabetes. I intended to be off the sales floor not working for about five minutes. I was still on the clock. The thing took a lot longer. I was off the floor for almost 30 minutes. Even though I communicated with my team partway through and inquired if they were okay. I got an answer back to make me think they were fine. I got written up for time theft for that desire to help my co-worker out.”
His second violation similarly revolved around his being a decent human being. Foster’s and Mikey’s co-workers help get Mikey off his shift a few minutes early so he can catch his MAX train toward his home.
“Mikey’s legally blind, and he takes a MAX and a bus home every single day,” explained Foster. “I had just clocked out for my lunch break and wandered back by the front end of the store to get my hoodie to wear and noticed it was about that time to get him out. I took it upon myself, as has been fairly past practice for us, to shut his register down a few minutes early and let him leave.”
He continued, “I got fired for not only “working” while I was on my lunch–I worked for about 20 seconds doing that–but also for contradicting the wishes of our department management who had decided we are not allowed to do that for him anymore, and I was not aware that they had made that crackdown.”
This most recent strike by the NSLU comes as contract talks between the union and New Seasons’s management remain mired after over two years of management first refusing to negotiate and then, according to the union, only doing so in bad faith, with no offer close to the union’s demands. Foster’s firing is seen by the union as an attempt to browbeat union workers into accepting an offer that does not meet workers’ needs.
Brian Berry, Store Representative for Arbor Lodge, said, “My perspective is that Randy was unjustly fired after almost 19 years of service to this company. About as good a worker as they could want. But the fact is he’s a union organizer. He’s our union treasurer, and they deemed it worthy of firing. Apparently management doesn’t want our co-workers looking out for each other.”
Mikey, the New Seasons worker whom Foster got fired for helping, as well as his co-workers, worries that he may be next.
“They’ve been kind of causing pressure on Randy and myself to leave,” he said.
Berry concurred, stating, “There’s been a lot of pressure recently as far as we can tell to push Mikey out, and maybe eventually fire him. And we think Randy’s firing is absolutely connected to that considering the person Randy was helping was Mikey.”
For Mikey, the stakes are high. But he felt it was important to support his co-workers as they have supported him. “If I lose my job, I’ll be homeless. It’s a one income household in my household. My partner is unable to work. I’m not gonna let that stop me from being here. I’m not gonna let that stop me from sticking up for my co-workers and fighting the good fight.”
The NSLU’s struggle for its first contract in many ways bears a striking resemblance to that of the Burgerville Workers Union (BVWU). One reason for the BVWU’s success was the union’s exposure of the divide between the company’s professed values and the way it treated its workers. When New Seasons was founded in Portland in 1999, it could honestly state it was a locally owned store that reflected local values. Since then, the company has been sold a few times. It now is owned by Good Food Holdings, a subsidiary of the multinational retail company, Emart Inc.
New Seasons has indeed come a long way from its roots. It once proudly proclaimed on its storefronts, employees’ aprons, bags, and fliers that it was “the friendliest store in town.” That phrase physically disappeared a few years ago, although the workers still carry it on.
Nick Neumann, who has worked in the Portland grocery industry for nearly 20 years, noted, “While workers at New Seasons attempt to keep their end of ‘friendliest store in town’ by providing great customer service, management has turned New Seasons to perhaps the most hostile store in town for workers.”.
Mikey said about Foster’s firing, “I think that it’s totally unfair. It’s bogus. He didn’t do anything wrong. New Seasons seems to be trying to chase a lot of folks out. My real, visceral thought is, I’m beyond disgusted with what New Seasons has done. You know, I’m 55 years old, and I’ve been working since I was 14. I have not encountered such a hostile work environment.”
“I want people to know a couple of things,” he added. “One, just how good of a person Randy is. Randy is an amazing person. He is my friend. He’s my co-worker. He’s someone I care about profoundly. And for them to let him go in the manner that they did is just wrong. It’s so wrong. And what I want people in the public to know is that New Seasons is not the ‘good place’ that it was ten or fifteen years ago. It’s changed. It’s not locally owned. It’s not a good company. And it does not take care of store employees.”
Foster recalled when he first began working at New Seasons. “One of New Seasons’s core slogans ever since the beginning is ‘do the right thing always.’ And that is a founding core of the company. Ultimately that is what I was trying to do in both these instances, and I am now fired. New Seasons is still living on their image that they have cultivated over the last 25 years, and it’s not representative of the way the company is anymore.”
Just before Thanksgiving, the NSLU asked people to boycott New Seasons until the workers got a fair contract. That call for a boycott remains, and as more people have learned about the chasm between the New Seasons they thought they knew and the one the store’s workers endure, the company is starting to feel the pinch in its bottom line. Wednesday’s community turnout in support of Foster and his co-workers was its largest outpouring yet, and over 2,000 people have signed pledges to honor the boycott.
“We know the company is feeling the boycott,” said Berry. “What they did to Randy shows once again this company does not deserve anyone’s hard earned money. With the amount groceries have gone up, shop anywhere else. Don’t give your money to New Seasons until we settle a fair contract.”
Want to get involved? Visit the New Seasons Labor Union’s website at: https://www.nslu.org.
To sign the New Seasons Labor Union boycott pledge and to donate to the union’s strike fund, go to: https://www.nslu.org/community.
