Don Schaefer's List: Labor

The nation’s main union for retail workers lost a unionization vote on Friday at a Target store in Valley Stream, N.Y., in what was an effort to make it the first of Target’s 1,750 stores in the United States to be unionized.


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A spokeswoman for Target said early Saturday morning that 137 workers had voted against joining the union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, while 85 workers voted for it.

In a statement, the union’s president, Bruce W. Both, said that the workers at the Valley Stream store endured a “campaign of threats, intimidation and illegal acts by Target management,” and that the union would contest the results.

“Target did everything they could to deny these workers a chance at the American dream,” he said. “However, the workers’ pursuit of a better life and the ability to house and feed their families is proving more powerful. These workers are not backing down from this fight. They are demanding another election. They are demanding a fair election. They are demanding justice and they are prepared to fight for it.”