No president of the United States had ever fired a member of the National Labor Relations Board in the board’s 90 years of existence. That changed last Monday, when President Trump fired (without cause) a Senate-confirmed board member in an unprecedented — and some say, illegal — move, midway through the five-year term she was serving.
The shocking move was announced mere hours after another development in the world of labor: Whole Foods workers at Philadelphia’s Fairmount store successfully voted to unionize, a first for the Amazon-owned grocery retailer.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all that Philadelphia is where we’re seeing the first Whole Foods store to organize.” — Paul Clark
While that union vote is groundbreaking, it’s exactly the sort of worker-led effort that Trump’s maneuvers with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are aimed at stopping. The NLRB is a five-member federal agency that’s responsible for upholding workers’ rights, investigating unfair labor practices, and recognizing the legitimacy of union elections. Following the firing, the board has only two sitting members (a couple of vacancies existed prior to last week), which means the NLRB is effectively paralyzed and unable to function — either until Trump appoints new members, or his actions are reversed through a court challenge.
Regardless, the juxtaposition of the two events, happening on the same day last week, suggests an uncertain future for labor organizing, one that could go in a number of directions. On the one hand, public support for unions has climbed to 70 percent, according to a recent Gallup poll (more than 20 points higher than it was just 15 years ago), and union membership rose throughout the pandemic, bucking a decades-long decline. On the other hand, the Trump White House is back.
“I think it’s a real positive thing, symbolically, that one of the Whole Foods stores has organized, but they’ve just won a battle. They have not won the war.” — Paul Clark
So, with this backdrop, what does the Whole Foods vote really mean? Is it a last hurrah for a recent stretch of successes with unions, emboldened by Joe Biden’s administration? Or is it a sign that the momentum could be sustained despite the changeover in Washington?
To answer those questions, and more, The Citizen sat down with Paul Clark, the esteemed professor of labor and employment relations at Penn State, and a historian of the American labor movement.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Malcolm Burnley: What do you make of the timing of the Whole Foods union vote happening right after the inauguration?
Paul Clark: If they started trying to organize today and had an election in three months, four months, I think it might be a different story, but the Whole Foods store winning an election is consistent with the very significant number of relatively low-wage workplaces that organized under the Biden administration.
To some degree, the process moves at its own pace. But I think they were fortunate in their timing, whether it was intentional or not. It certainly wasn’t a coincidence that they were emboldened to organize during the last four-year period when unions have had the wind at their back.
What contributed to those better-than-normal conditions for new unions?
Over the last four or five years, a lot of factors have come together to create a pretty positive atmosphere for workers trying to organize, though it’s still difficult. You’ve had a labor market with low unemployment, which means that workers aren’t as frightened about organizing and losing their job, because they can go across the street and get another one. Public support [for unions] has been at an all time high. You’ve got Gen Z workers coming into the workforce, and there’s a lot of evidence that they want more out of their work. They’re not willing to just put up with things that previous generations have put up with.
“You’ve got Gen Z workers coming into the workforce, and there’s a lot of evidence that they want more out of their work. They’re not willing to just put up with things that previous generations have put up with.” — Paul Clark, Penn State
Then, you had the Biden administration that was supportive of workers organizing. The questions that we are trying to answer now are, Has this been a sort of blip on the radar? Is this just a coincidence that all these factors came together at once, and you know, are we going to slip back to a place where unions are on the defensive? Or has there been a fundamental shift in the attitude of workers who aren’t willing to put up with things?
How will Trump’s actions with the NLRB firings affect the union at Whole Foods?
Well, it’s very difficult for workers in the United States to organize a union, and that’s largely because we have relatively weak labor law, relatively weak protections when workers organize, and also because American employers are almost uniquely and vehemently anti-union. So the Whole Foods workers had an uphill battle, but they had the advantage of a NLRB under the Biden administration that was much more pro-worker than the last Trump board.
The next step for the union is bargaining a contract, and employers routinely try to delay that. They have a duty to bargain with the new union, but that only requires them to meet and exchange proposals. So the general strategy is to drag these things out. If you had the Biden board, they had been cracking down on employers who did this. But now we have a Trump board, and they’re very likely to allow employers to [use these tactics].
About those contracts. Isn’t it true that employees at various Starbucks locations have had unions for years, but not a single one has attained a union contract?
It’s true, and it really shows you the weak and ineffective labor laws we have in this country. In terms of Starbucks, they’re up to something like 540 stores [where employees have voted to unionize]. Not one of those stores has a union contract yet. Starbucks has taken the strategy of: We lost some of the battles, the organizing elections, but we haven’t lost the war, because if we can delay and delay on negotiating a contract these workers are going to get frustrated. They’re going to be disillusioned. They’re going to say, why did we go to all this trouble?
“In virtually every situation where workers try to organize, the employer has the upper hand. And when we’re talking about Whole Foods, who’s owned by Amazon … that’s not an uphill fight. That’s David and Goliath times 10.” — Paul Clark
I certainly would expect that in the case of the Whole Foods workers, Whole Foods and their parent employer, Amazon, have clearly demonstrated that they’re willing to go to great lengths to avoid a union. I think it’s a real positive thing, symbolically, that one of the Whole Foods stores has organized, but they’ve just won a battle. They have not won the war.
With a potentially unfriendly NLRB, what tools do workers have at their disposal?
Even if you don’t have a union formally, the workers can still go out on strike, and through that mechanism, force the employer to recognize them. You can engage in sort of hit-and-run tactics where workers slow down [on the job] or try to get a public boycott of a store.
But you know, in virtually every situation where workers try to organize, the employer has the upper hand. And when we’re talking about Whole Foods, who’s owned by Amazon, one of the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the world, that’s not an uphill fight. That’s David and Goliath times 10.
Do you think Amazon might shut down the Fairmount Whole Foods?
Whole Foods can absorb one store not operating, or 10 stores not operating, or 20 stores not operating. So it’s a possibility. However, under labor law, if an employer tries to close a store that’s just organized, that would be illegal under the National Labor Relations Act, because what you’re doing is punishing people for exercising their legal right to organize.
Now, would the Trump board uphold that right? Even a Trump board might have trouble letting that go. So I’d be very surprised if Whole Foods tried to close the store that just organized. But for the other stores that are not organized yet, well, they can find all kinds of reasons to close them.
How do you square the fact that union support has risen substantially at a time when Donald Trump, a notoriously anti-union leader, has also been resurgent?
We’ve seen real changes in the voting patterns of working class people who traditionally had voted for Democrats up until maybe the 2016 election. In the most recent election, the percentage of union workers that Harris won was not as good as Biden, but better than Clinton, showing that unions still — if they engage with their members — can uphold their tradition of voting for Democrats. But Harris did much more poorly with working class voters [who are non-union members], who shifted to Trump.
Ironically, I would argue that many of those workers are going to be in a more difficult position to try to make their workplaces better now. And why would they vote against their own economic interests? First of all, it’s the Trump phenomenon. But second, it’s the changes among working class voters on views of social issues, where they have become much more conservative, and they see Trump as someone who’s going to protect the traditional, particularly rural, working-class way of life. Unions have lost ground, even though they still are able to get a majority of their members to vote for Democrats, but the working class has really been lost, one could say.
Does the Whole Foods union prove that Philly is still a “union town?”
You know, the union density in this country is 9.9 percent — the statistics just came out. Philadelphia’s union density is around 15 percent. That may not sound like much, but in this country, Philadelphia is on the high end of the scale in terms of having an active labor community.
They have what’s called the Philadelphia Central Labor Council which all the unions in the city belong to. You have unions of all kinds: building trades unions, healthcare workers unions, government unions, even industrial unions in some of the factories around the city. They even have a parade every year. So in that sense, I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all that Philadelphia is where we’re seeing the first Whole Foods store to organize.
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Photo courtesy of UFCW Local 1776.