Ben & Jerry’s model ice cream sits in a grocery store freezer.
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Ben and Jerry’s employees on the ice cream firm’s flagship retailer in Burlington, Vermont, are submitting for a union election on Monday.
The transfer provides to a string of service business union drives, together with unionization pushes at Starbucks and Dealer Joe’s.
Employees on the Burlington retailer have petitioned the Nationwide Labor Relations Board for an election. Their group, dubbed “Scoopers United,” has the backing of the identical union that launched Starbucks’ fast-growing organizing marketing campaign, in keeping with a launch from the group.
That union, Employees United, has received union elections at tons of of Starbucks areas throughout the nation at a fast tempo.
If the Burlington employees approve a unionization vote, their retailer could be the primary Ben & Jerry’s location within the U.S. to take action.
Ben & Jerry’s didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
In its decades-long historical past, the corporate has change into well-known for placing its weight behind social justice causes, which turned notably notable amid the George Floyd protests of 2020.
Ben & Jerry’s has even sued its mother or father firm, Unilever, when its actions got here into battle with Ben & Jerry’s said social mission.
A unionization push will put Ben & Jerry’s company beliefs to the check, in keeping with Scoopers United.
“Collectively, we’ve come to embody Ben and Jerry’s slogan of ‘peace, love, and ice cream,'” the group wrote.
The employees have requested Ben & Jerry’s to signal a code of conduct that will maintain the corporate to respecting employees’ proper to arrange, whereas refraining from union-busting.
The corporate’s stance on this latest unionization push is not but identified. In 1998, the corporate challenged a unionization try made by upkeep employees in its Vermont plant, arguing the union vote needs to be held amongst all plant employees.