Target Gets Targeted: An NLRB Election Petition Has Been Filed By The Wobblies In Virginia
Target Gets Targeted: An NLRB Election Petition Has Been Filed By The Wobblies In Virginia
If Amazon and Starbucks thought they were the only large employers on unions’ radars, they were mistaken.
A Target store in southern Virginia has reportedly received a petition for an NLRB election by “the Wobblies” (aka the Industrial Workers of the World), according to an IWW release.
Target workers at Store 1292 in Christiansburg, Virginia have petitioned for collective bargaining with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after Target Corporation issued no response to a request for voluntary recognition on April 26th, 2022.
Workers have also filed unfair labor practice charges in relation to store management‘s violations of the prior NLRB settlement stemming from a strike action and subsequent protected concerted activity in 2017/2018.
In April, veteran Target workers at the store organized a seniority pay petition demanding an additional $2 dollars for five-year veterans from the starting wage, plus an additional $2 dollars for ten-year+ veterans on top of the initial $2 dollars.
Target instructs workers to come directly to the company with their issues, that they have an “open door policy” for workers as if they are willing to address our grievances. After issuing the seniority pay petition Target workers were met with evasive tactics and nonanswers by corporate HR.
Once it became apparent no direct answer would be given to Target workers at Store 1292 regarding their seniority pay petition Target workers were forced to petition the Labor Board for the right to collectively bargain. Target workers have established the New River Valley General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World as their official bargaining representative.
The Industrial Workers or the World, or “Wobblies,” is a union founded in 1905 on the premise that “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common, and that the wage system must be abolished.”
“Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organise as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the earth,” the union states in the preamble to its constitution..
As an anti-”trade union” organization, the IWW adopted the Karl Marx’s phrase “Workers of the World Unite!” in their publications and songs.
As opposed to being a relic of the past, the IWW has launched a number of campaigns over the years, including those on behalf of workers at Burgerville in Oregon, Jimmy Johns in Minneapolis, and Starbucks, among others.
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