Patagonia workers in New York vote unanimously to unionize with RWDSU/UFCW

Patagonia workers in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood turned a supermajority card campaign into a unanimous union vote, a rare retail result that landed with immediate force on March 21. The in-person secret ballot election, run by the National Labor Relations Board, ended with full-time and regular part-time employees voting to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers.

The bargaining unit covered customer experience guides and team leaders, and the union said roughly 30 employees were in the store. Workers filed their petition on February 20, after telling management they had gathered enough signed authorization cards to show a supermajority of support. Under NLRB rules, workers or a union can file a representation petition once they collect signatures from at least 30% of the proposed bargaining unit.

The SoHo vote made that location the first Patagonia store in the eastern United States to unionize. It also followed the 2024 vote at Patagonia’s Reno, Nevada store, where workers joined UFCW Local 711 and became the company’s first unionized location in the country.

Workers said the push was driven by more than the company’s public image. Their concerns included cuts to paid time off, health benefits and training, along with the day-to-day strain of retail work inside a brand that markets itself as values-driven. Some workers also described a growing management presence in the store during the campaign, which added to the sense that the floor was under close watch.

The RWDSU cast the result as part of a broader surge in outdoor retail organizing, and the unanimous margin gave the campaign a symbolic edge that many retail drives never reach. In a low-union sector, that matters because it shows how quickly a store can become politically significant once workers decide to move together instead of waiting for conditions to improve on their own.

Patagonia vice president of impact and communications Corley Kenna has said the company respects employees’ right to make an informed decision about unionization and is working to understand employee concerns. That gap between corporate messaging and shop-floor reality is exactly what gave the SoHo campaign traction, and it is why Dollar General employees should pay attention. The setting is different, but the mechanics are familiar: when workers believe pay, hours, training and respect are not being handled fairly, the NLRB process gives them a path to force a vote and demand a stronger voice on the job.