An inside look into how retail workers organized Florida's first H&M
Retail associates at an H&M store in Melbourne voted to form Florida's first recognized H&M union in May. Will others stores be next?
Earlier this year, retail associates at an H&M clothing store in Melbourne, Florida made history by voting almost unanimously in May to unionize with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).
The workers’ 13-1 vote in favor of unionization officially established the very first (and only) recognized union of H&M workers in Florida and in the broader U.S. South.
The historic victory at the store — driven by issues such as lack of decision-making power, frustrating scheduling practices, and low pay — didn’t receive a lot of attention from the media, probably because the union didn’t really advertise it.
There was no press release, no flashy social media posts from the local union they organized with, located about 120 miles east of Melbourne in Lakeland. I covered the campaign for Orlando Weekly, only learning of it after coming across a petition filed by H&M, formally known as Hennes & Mauritz AB, to hold a union election.
An employer filing a petition for a union election, under federal rules, indicates that a majority of workers approached H&M management and asked them to voluntarily recognize their union. Filing a petition for a union election indicates that their employer refused to do so.
Voluntary recognition — described in a U.S. Department of Labor blog post as a “fairer and simpler” process of forming a union — allows for workers and the company to skip the often-heated process of a union election (where employers sometimes run aggressive, scorched-earth anti-union campaigns), and can allow for a smoother bargaining process.
There has been precedent for voluntary recognition granted by H&M before — just not in Florida. Back in 2011, the Swedish retailer publicly announced their decision to recognize the union at six H&M stores in New York, representing over 200 retail workers, after a majority of workers signed union cards showing their interest in unionizing.
“We worked diligently with the Union to ensure that the entire organizing process was fair and democratic,” a spokesperson for H&M said at the time. “H&M enjoys good relations with unions worldwide and we will continue to build upon our new relationship and partnership with the UFCW.”
Such was not the case this time in Melbourne, however (H&M did not respond to a request for comment on this when I reached out to them earlier this year).
I also contacted the union, quite honestly thrilled to see a novel organizing campaign emerge in a state where less than five percent of workers in the private sector can say they belong to a union. If you work in a low-wage, high-turnover sector like retail, hospitality, or food service, the odds of having a union job, or successfully forming a union are even lower than the average worker. As of last year, just about 1.3 percent of retail workers in clothing stores were covered by a union, according to federal data.
Yet, as we’ve seen through grassroots, worker-led organizing campaigns by service workers at Starbucks, Amazon, Trader Joe’s, and REI — unionizing in these traditionally difficult-to-organize sectors is not an impossible feat. Not if you have an essential foundation of solidarity, material (and moral) support, and an intrinsic drive to fight for better, and not give up until you achieve it. A worker-friendly National Labor Relations Board — the federal agency overseeing private sector union elections — also helps.
It wasn’t until after the H&M workers on Florida’s Space Coast voted to unionize that I was able to get in touch with a rank-and-file employee at the store, to learn more about the origins of the organizing drive from their perspective — and not just from Local 1625 president Ed Chambers, who nonetheless divulged an ambitious plan to unionize every single H&M store in Florida (there are a couple dozen).
Unlike in Melbourne, the UFCW didn’t come out quite so victorious in a more recent unionization effort by workers at an H&M store in Lakeland. According to the National Labor Relations Board, workers there ultimately voted 2-3 against unionization, and the union did not file objections to the results.
The reason(s) for this loss is unclear to me (union staff did not respond to my request for comment back when the votes were tallied), but I wonder if it had to do with a difference in how the organizing process began, and perhaps other factors unique to their store — or the one in Melbourne — that influenced the outcome.
Here’s what I know about what went down at Florida’s first (and only) unionized H&M:
‘We kind of stuck together’
A sales representative at the Melbourne store — who requested anonymity in order to speak freely — told me that, in their case, the move to unionize was completely organic, and a couple of years in the making. They contacted the union earlier this year after doing some research, driven in part by a sense of powerlessness on the job, as well as a rise in Florida’s cost of living.
For years, the idea of unionizing was just a “joke,” the worker told me. Then, their multi billion-dollar employer began rolling out new policy changes during the COVID-19 pandemic — without the store-level associates’ input.
“So,” the worker told me with a laugh, “H&M likes to change things that for us, we feel like we get used to it, and then they change it — and then it’s just like okay, now I have to get used to something new.”
The uncontrollable churn establishes a new learning curve that these workers — paid just about Florida’s minimum wage of $12 an hour — are just expected to roll with, and adapt to. “I know a lot of people, not only in our company, but other retailers kind of go through the same thing, where they’re feeling unappreciated,” the worker, in their early 30’s, shared. “There’s a lack of leadership, there is not a great working environment. The company is just really thinking about their higher-ups.”
Unlike many other retail locations where high staff turnover is a chronic, and often disruptive problem, their specific store in Melbourne, the worker said, fared much better during the early, uncertain COVID years. “From Orlando, Jacksonville, Daytona — their turnover rates were like ridiculously high,” the worker told me. “But yeah, for us here in Melbourne, we kind of stuck together and we kind of worked through it.”
“There’s a lack of leadership, there is not a great working environment. The company is just really thinking about their higher-ups”
This fostered a sense of camaraderie that may not have necessarily been present at the Lakeland location. According to Chambers, turnover was one of their biggest challenges during the organizing campaign there. “You don’t get a whole lot of loyalty when you’re making 12 bucks an hour,” he quipped.
Policy changes unilaterally implemented by H&M — regarding purchasing options for customers, social distancing, and the like — transformed the “joke” of unionization into a more serious conversation. As changes were rolled out, “the idea became more of a frequent talk,” the worker said.
A tough road in the South
Then, in April, the retail crew got another spark of inspiration. Through an internal communication platform within their company, the Melbourne workers saw that a new store up in New York had also decided to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU)/United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) up north. They’d also already ratified a contract guaranteeing sick days, paid time off, and medical coverage, according to the union.
There are just a handful of H&M stores and warehouses in the country that are unionized, up in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. There were none in the so-called “anti-union” South — until now.
The Melbourne crew was intrigued by the victory up north, and they began looking into the idea of unionizing themselves. “We just thought it’s like, hey, we might have to do this,” the worker told me.
One of their coworkers contacted the UFCW international union, which connected them with Local 1625 in Florida. Local 1625, based in Lakeland, is the only UFCW local in Florida, representing about 8,100 working people employed by the Walt Disney Co., Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, and about 120 nursing homes.
From there, a few of the H&M workers spoke with an organizer for the UFCW, so both parties could get a feel for where everyone was at with the idea. Chambers told me that the union, for its part, aims to inform workers up-front what they can realistically expect from unionization — especially in a state like Florida, where unions have less power than states with higher union density, and have a more difficult path towards bigger wins at the bargaining table.
“You got to be honest and tell them: it’s bargaining, we’ll do the best we can,” Chambers said, candidly. “We try to get them to trust us more than trust in the guy that screwed them for the last umpteen years.”
It’s a modest approach — not exactly raising expectations, but setting them. Chambers, a former head of the Services Trades Council union, representing some 40,000+ workers at Disney World, said that without a union, there’s just more to lose. “They have no say so in their future if they’re non-union,” the longtime union leader pointed out. “With us, they get to vote on everything. They pick their representatives, they make their proposals in the contract, and we take them to bargain.”
Union staff are also upfront about thorny issues like dues — a talking point that employers (and the expensive anti-union labor consultants they often hire) will often leverage to erode union support.
Company representatives, for instance, may tell workers that they’ll be forced to pay astronomical dues to the union if they vote to unionize — stealing much of the hard-earned income from their paychecks.
“And that’s bullshit,” Chambers scoffed. Federal records show the local currently has a sliding scale for dues that ranges between $14.50 and $19.50, paid every two weeks.
Plus, because Florida is a right-to-work state (not to be confused with “at-will” employment), paying union dues is completely voluntary, anyway. Florida’s so-called “right-to-work” policy — which says that no worker can be compelled to pay union dues — is a nearly century-old measure with racist roots. During the Jim Crow Era, the movement for right-to-work originated with Southern racists who were intent on undermining unions and the multiracial solidarity that was beginning to blossom in the U.S. labor movement.
Chambers said union staff also sought to dispel the other common anti-union talking points around striking. Often, employer representatives will try to scare workers by telling them that the union will force them to go on strike, whenever union staff feel like it, without pay.
Union leaders argue that framing is disingenuous and false. “The process is, they’d have to vote a couple times by a two-thirds majority before you could ever have a work stoppage,” Chambers explained, at least in his local’s case. In addition, most union contracts in the private sector have strict “no-strike” language, barring workers from going on strike for the duration of their union contracts, anyway.
Doing the research
Workers at the Melbourne store, presented with the union staffs’ spiel, did their own homework, too. “Well, for me, I personally first Googled like, ‘What is a union,’” the anonymous worker told me.
They researched the union online, and got in touch with other union members to get their insight. “We contacted other unions from like, up north, and then we also asked around here, from other family members and friends who are union here, in healthcare and the teachers’ union.”
Just under five percent of the workforce in the Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville metro area has union representation, mainly in the public sector and through some private employers like UPS (where drivers and warehouse workers are unionized with the Teamsters).
Union members they spoke to imparted their own take on the ‘union difference’ — protections that workers are more likely to receive as part of a union, and other benefits like comparatively higher pay. They also explained what workers could expect from unionization and the collective bargaining process, practically speaking. Such things are murky in Florida, where most working people don’t have a union, and labor education is not really a thing in your standard K-12 curriculum.
The H&M worker said that, in all honesty, the union drive wasn’t just an educational experience for them — but also for management. “It was definitely a learning experience for both sides,” they admitted.
And there’s a reason the worker asked to remain anonymous. While firing workers, demoting them, or retaliating against them in any way for their union activity is illegal under federal law, the path towards a remedy through the federal labor board can be long — sometimes taking months, or years. And it can be confusing to navigate.
Going through with the union drive was “definitely scary at first,” the worker told me. “But then, after having the election, having the win and knowing the amount of help, like, how [much] support that we had, it just made it easier for us, and we feel a little bit more empowered,” they said.
“After having the election, having the win and knowing the amount of help, like, how [much] support that we had, it just made it easier for us, and we feel a little bit more empowered.”
Last time I caught up with Chambers, back in July, he told me workers at the Melbourne store were meeting weekly over Zoom to discuss ideas for bargaining.
Although the loss in Lakeland could pose something of a setback, Chambers told me ahead of that election that he expects there will be union drives at other H&M stores in Florida in the near future.
According to Chambers, the UFCW is also interested in expanding their H&M organizing efforts (providing workers with the tools and resources they need to build a union) outside of Florida. “We’ve had about a dozen [union] reps from different parts of the country here,” he told me, describing Florida as their “training headquarters.”
Union reps have traveled down south to learn more about H&M, he explained, and what the local is ambitiously trying to build here in the Sunshine State — whether that comes to fruition or not.
As labor columnist Hamilton Nolan recently reported for In These Times, the UFCW international union is currently facing something of a reform movement within its ranks, similar to what happened in recent years within the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers. Reform activists with the UFCW, a union of about 1.2 million members, are advocating, in part, for a “large investment in new organizing.”
While organizing in the South is a heavier lift, requiring more resources and investment, some unions — like the UAW — are seeking to reignite a call to organize the region. In Melbourne, not exactly a union stronghold, workers think it’s worth a shot. “If you [feel] like you’re due something, like, you’re owed for all the work and years that you’ve put into it, you’re at one of those companies where they’re just not recognizing that, or they just ignore it — It’s like, you might as well go for it,” the Melbourne sales rep told me.