Last spring I described the plans the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789 were hoping to implement in their effort to unionize the new Target store then being built in West St. Paul. The strategy called for a “groundswell of opposition,” as reported in the StarTribune at the time.
The goal is to create a groundswell of opposition to Target before the West St. Paul store reopens this fall as a SuperTarget, said Bernie Hesse, a union organizer with Local 789 of St. Paul, which represents 7,500 workers in the Twin Cities area.
“We want to have people in those stores, organizing, on the day it opens and we want the [West St. Paul] community to support us,” he said.
The new SuperTarget opened last week and it appears there has been a groundswell, though perhaps not what the UFCW was hoping for. I’ve been to the new store three times so far. It may be more precise to say I’ve been on the premises three times because once the parking lot was so full that I couldn’t find a place to park for my quick errand so I whipped over to the neighboring WalMart store. On the two occasions I actually made it indoors the store was teeming with folks, none of whom appeared to be carrying picket signs. Meanwhile the staff, though a little harried, did not appear to be straining against the cruel oppression of management.
Perhaps the Mall Diva, a former employee in the store’s previous incarnation on this site, will go undercover for us and talk to some of her friends who have returned to work at the new store and report what, if anything, is happening.
Meanwhile, there are just 71 shopping days until Christmas.
