UNFI Warehouse Workers Win First Teamsters Contract With 31% Pay Raise

More than 200 UNFI warehouse workers in Pompano Beach turned a strike threat into a five-year first contract that delivers a 31% wage increase, Teamsters health care, entry into the Teamsters Western Conference Pension Plan, and just-cause protections with grievance and arbitration procedures.

For Dollar General employees, especially anyone in a distribution center or private fleet role, that package is a hard benchmark. It shows what bargaining can produce when workers push beyond basic pay demands and insist on rules that cover the things retail and logistics workers deal with every day, including discipline, scheduling pressure, and a lack of any real appeal when management makes a call.

The contract came after the Pompano Beach workers voted 100% on April 1 to authorize a strike if UNFI did not reach a fair agreement and stop what the union called unfair labor practices. The Teamsters said the workers had organized the facility the previous year. For workers at Dollar General, where understaffing, sudden write-ups, and safety complaints can leave employees with few protections, just-cause language matters because it limits arbitrary punishment. Grievance and arbitration procedures matter because they create a formal path to challenge discipline instead of forcing workers to swallow it or quit.

The wage gain is just as concrete. A 31% raise over five years gives workers a set pay path instead of the usual retail promise of maybe getting by with another annual review. In stores where wages stay low and advancement can be slow, that kind of contract raises the floor in a way a manager’s reassurance never can. The same is true of the benefits side. Health care and a defined pension give warehouse workers something many retail employees spend years trying to cobble together on their own, especially in jobs where injuries, turnover and burnout are common.

The UNFI deal also fits into a broader organizing wave. In May 2025, more than 230 UNFI workers in Pompano Beach and Miami voted to join Teamsters Local 769. The union said more than 3,500 UNFI workers have organized since 2022 and that it now represents more than 5,500 UNFI workers nationwide, nearly 65% of the company’s workforce. UNFI said it was pleased with the deal and described it as fair and competitive, even as the company faces pressure from softer sales and a planned distribution center closure in Sturtevant, Wisconsin. For workers, the lesson is direct: when bargaining succeeds, it can turn a vague promise of better conditions into enforceable pay, benefits and job security.