Grocery chain Trader Joe’s is joining Elon Musk’s SpaceX in arguing that the US labor board, which is prosecuting cases against both companies, is unconstitutional.
I’m disappointed. I really thought that TJs was more like Costco. You look at the employees and they are always smiling, just like Costco. Guess not all things are equal.
The founder died, shit has changed drastically in the last 5 years or so
Gotcha. Too bad.
I looked this up and he hasn’t been at the helm on the company since 1988, and had already sold it to the Aldi founder long before.
Trader Joe’s is overpriced Aldi. Their employees are told to smile, just like everywhere else you go that employees are always smiling. Nobody’s that happy at work, and that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody at this point.
Trader Joe’s is owned by Aldi
Different brother. There’s Aldi Sud and Aldi Nord (I think that’s right), who have common family history but are now separate companies. One operates the US chain called Aldi and the other owns TJ’s.
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Trader Joe’s is owned by the OTHER Aldi, which is related historically but entirely separate from the Aldi stores in the US.
Interestingly the US is the only country to have both companies other than Germany itself, and even there one is in one half of the country and the other in the other.
Different aldis.
The frozen stuff is WAY better at TJs; my local Aldi has mostly stuff that’s cheap because it’s about to expire
If I want frozen garbage, I can buy it at any grocery store. No need to go to an overpriced place that leaves most of their floor space empty. I legit do not get trader joe’s or why people like it. Easily have that place is just frozen crap, and the other half is random vegetables and candy.
My grocery store’s frozen crap has never been as good, interesting, or inexpensive as it is at Trader Joe’s. It’s not that the stuff there is great or cheap, but there’s a bit of variety that is harder to find in the Krogers and Safeways and they do switch things up so every few months there are new options. For me, between variety and C quality, vs the same basic American stuff and somewhere between F to B quality, I’ll take the former. That’s why I don’t really get frozen stuff at Costco.
Joe literally ate the motherfuckers who don’t smile.
Costco aint much better and are very anti union, the warehouse workers get treated better than their counterparts at Walmart but the company doesn’t give a fuck about its workers, just its image of being ‘one of the good ones’. Their response to workers in Virginia forming a union is pretty telling, they also don’t give out a annual cost of living raise even for “exceptional workers”, its maxes out at 3%
I really do believe that most people who work there enjoy their job and are happy there. Costco has also released a statement about how to become a better company in response to unionization.
Yes because they don’t want a union to form because then Costco loses control and potentially their reputation. Even if you like you’re job, which I know from personal experience many a Costco do, being in a union is good, it give you a say in the way your work life goes. Costco does not want that which is why they play the song and dance, and yes some of that does equate to a better situation than similar companies, but they are still paying the lowest they believe they can get away with . Being better than their competitors like Walmart, Amazon, and Target is a really low bar
Costco isn’t anti union
What the F, TJ? Want to make a loyal customer of 15+ years quit? This is how you do it. We’re a union family, we vote with our dollars too.
Where are you gonna shop that’s better? Kroger? Safeway? Walmart? Whole foods? It’s fucked up.
I used to shop at a kroger that had a UFCW sticker on the sliding doors out front. They represent 835,000 grocery workers. Unions have a strong foothold in American Grocery stores. Sounds like TJ’s needs em.
Kroger and Safeway are unionized
Your local co-op?
IGA!
My qfc has a sticker at the front door that says the staff is unionized, so I’m shopping always there.
More than the chain l, I think it’s better to shop of places that are unionized
Presumably union families have more dollars to vote with as well.
There has been a push to unionize some TJ locations.
Here is an interview with one of the organizers from MA.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-below/id1713434162?i=1000634877458
Not all locations, such as my local one, are unionized. Hopefully there is some good progress soon since some lawsuits against the unions were tossed out of court late last year.
Edit: Just want to clarify that the existence of unions doesn’t justify their anti-union rhetoric, I do believe that corporate is shitty. I recently learned about their union struggle and wanted to share the story
A TJ’s in my area unionized last year. I went there and congratulated as many staff as I could find. You could tell which way they voted by their response to my good tidings. Most seemed to really appreciate the support.
I know I’m in the minority likely, but Trader Joes is shit it isn’t because it can’t survive unionization. Just because your chips are organic doesn’t make buying it from overly outgoing cashiers any healthier. Prepackaged junk food is prepackaged junk food and they sell a ton of it. Frozen dinners are still sodium bombs even though they don’t have “preservatives”. That said, fuck these two anti-union shitstains of companies.
They can survive it. Every company can survive it. They just don’t want to give up their dictatorship.
I shop at union grocery stores. The boutique chains see this as a something to exploit instead of a feature. Many union chains are local too, most boutique ones are national.
“WHO RUNS BARTERTOWN?!”
I don’t understand the trader Joe’s love. It’s a grocery store with a poor selection of fruits, vegetables, and fresh meats. They have a decent wine and beer selection. It’s basically half frozen stuff, it’s maybe higher quality than other places, but it’s just frozen shit.
I was so disappointed the first time I went to Trader Joe’s. It had been so hyped up and people made it sound like a mini Jungle Jim’s. Then it opened and it was just a more expensive Aldi.
Edited to remove a mistyped word.
For those that don’t live near Cincinnati, Jungle Jim’s is an international grocery store that’s amazing for foodies. It’s massive, and it has everything from international meats and cheeses to alcohol to fruits to sweets to hot sauces. It’s really a unique experience when it comes to grocery shopping.
It was better back in the early 2000s, in my opinion for two main reasons. First, the prices and quality were better. Second, and biggest of all, they carried a wide variety of products that had a limited presence in many American supermarkets, namely vegan/vegetarian meals, organic crap, and eclectic snacks. Most major grocers have caught up with demand and now they don’t stand out all that much.
The hype is definitely not worth it.
I haven’t been to a TJs in a while, but I remember I would go there for maybe one or two specific things that I couldn’t get anywhere else. They were delicious.
But you know what? I don’t even remember what they were anymore, that’s how important TJs is over any other grocery store.
Fuck them for being anti union. Guess they’ll continue not getting my money.
It’s usually just cheaper groceries but with a smaller selection
It wasn’t cheaper in my experience, kroger and meijer managed to be the same or cheaper on all the things I commonly bought.
Cheap vegan and vegetarian junk food that actually tastes good
I mean they make good cookie butter
But that’s about it imo
Come on, the quality of food at Trader Joe’s is FAR better than the brands you find at a Safeway.
Most of the food at Trader Joe’s is just white label with fancy packaging. It’s the same food you find at a Safeway.
There are a few specific items that Trader Joe’s is notable for… but ditto for Safeway, Hannaford’s, Food Lion, Star, Superstore, and SaveOn - I think two decades ago Trader Joe’s was a trailblazer in high quality offerings but they’ve slowly compromised for profits and competitors have realized that high quality offerings are valued by consumers - not just price.
That’s exactly my experience. We loved Trader Joe’s in the early 2000s. Now there isn’t much there we can’t find elsewhere, and the quality isn’t as good as what it once was. What IS exclusive to them is often artificially scarce to drive up price and demand. Looking at you, ube mochi pancake mix.
I have to admit to experiencing the same. I have fond memories from my undergrad years when I lived a few blocks from one and basically based my diet around them. Maybe they’re not the same anymore.
Interesting. Maybe I’m holding on to nostalgia.
It’s absolutely not, and it’s almost certainly grown, picked, packed, and shipped by the same slave labor.
The no preservatives label needs better regulation. Every food that has it is loaded with either salt or sugar. The reason that they are loaded with salt and/or sugar is because salt and sugar are two of the oldest and most used preservatives. And that’s my soapbox, thanks for listening.
The other one that pisses me off is no added nitrates (except for all the nitrates in the additives we added). Just be honest, companies. It’s really not hard to not be total shitbags.
The anti-unionization stuff makes me sad. They’re really the only ones around here who carry vegetarian/vegan options. If I go to the chain store next door the prices are quite a bit more expensive, and all they have is a small corner of the refrigerated section of vegetarian options of questionable expiration.
They have a lot of prepackaged junk but they do have good prices on bananas, blueberries and nuts. They also have a decent super high fiber, low sugar bran cereal.
I forgot to mention the little Persian cucumbers. They don’t always have them in stock at the co-op.
But going forward, I’ll get my fruit from more ethical stores
Dont tell anyone but you can just pull them off trees and its free, nature wont even stop you.
I get as much as I can from the farmer’s market but where I live there will never be a banana season
I’m also of the opinion that produce is seasonal and should be treated that way. Some times of the year we shouldn’t have bananas, blueberries, etc. They don’t care where we get the good priced fruits from. Could be Peru or Vietnam, they don’t care as long as they are on the shelves for consumers to buy. That ain’t how we survive a climate crisis.
The end of our patronage of TJs.
I ended it when I can’t find half the crap I want to eat consistently.
No more Trader Joe’s for me.
Same. I thought they were one of the good guys.
If people don’t have the right to decide what their labor is worth, then they are no better than slaves.
I agree with labor protections, but also let’s not compare people who have a choice of workplace, paid a wage, have benefits, aren’t owned by someone, cannot be bought or sold, and count as a full 5/5 of a person for the purposes of federal resource distribution to slaves who had none of those things.
Bud there’s different kinds of slavery this includes way back when too
The smartest thing about wage slavery is that our whole system runs on it. Everyone is born into the system and it just continues to perpetuate. At some point we have to redistribute wealth to help the general population succeed more. People should not have to worry about their basic needs for example. Food, shelter, healthcare, education. They should all be covered no questions asked.
*Traitor Joe’s
Well played
Wow so that kinda fuckin sucks. Guess I’m down to market basket.
I guess labour has no choice but to go back to the old style of negotiating. Aka. Rocking up at the bosses house on mass and ‘asking nicely’ for a raise.
Don’t forget bidding them “a very good day” if they see them in the streets.
Is this the Michael Scott defense? Instead of yelling “I declare bankruptcy” they yell “I declare this unconstitutional”?
It’s all very “Sovereign Citizen”.
I didn’t realize 2024 was the year I was going to stop shopping at TJ’s.
wow. Tjoes is just throwing its goodwill away by aligning with spaceX. Its to bad as I like them and aldis.
Yeah they frequently carry items no other grocer carries. Luckily I have a Sprouts nearby.
We can go back to mob violence if they don’t like our mutually agreed upon legal framework???
Being in agreement with Elon Musk is a clear sign you’re an idiot.
“The working class having a board that helps them is unconstitutional” for those who need a direct translation
