Whole Foods workers at the Philadelphia flagship store in the city’s Art Museum area voted to unionize on Jan. 27, 2025. They are the first store in the Amazon-owned grocery chain to do so. Paul Clark,

On Monday, workers at Philadelphia’s Center City Whole Foods Market voted 130–100 to be represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. It marks the first time an Amazon-owned Whole Foods store has voted to unionize—and it is one of the first major union elections of the second Trump presidency.

The removal of the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel had been expected. But the firing of a Democratic member stops it from protecting workers’ rights, for now.

President Trump fired National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. In an unprecedented move, he also ousted Democratic board member Gwynne Wilcox, leaving the board with no quorum.

Whole Foods workers in Philadelphia became the first group to unionize under the grocery store chain. The vote came months after it filed to hold a union election in November.

Whole Foods workers at the Spring Garden store have expressed frustration about low pay and want better health-care benefits.

The unionization vote comes despite a “barrage of union-busting techniques, intimidation, threats, coercion” and wrongful firings, UFCW Local 1776 President Wendell Young IV said in an interview.

The grocery chain’s store in Philadelphia becomes the first to join a union, where workers hope to expand organizing to other outlets and across the Amazon empire.

Whole Foods workers at the Philly flagship store in Fairmount voted to unionize on Jan. 27. They are the first in the Amazon-owned grocery chain to do so.

Whole Foods workers in Philadelphia voted in favor of union representation Monday, marking the Texas-based and Amazon-owned grocer's very first union. "Despite a tsunami of illegal union busting tactics, lies, intimidation, surveillance, workers persevered and won," workers wrote on Instagram after the results were revealed.

President Trump fired two Democratic EEOC commissioners and an NLRB board member, hobbling two independent agencies that are tasked with enforcing worker protections.