Feds Allege Trader Joe’s Pressured Workers, Threatened Pay Freeze Before Union Vote

Federal prosecutors at the National Labor Relations Board have advanced a complaint alleging a Trader Joe’s store identified in earlier NLRB filings as a Louisville, Kentucky location illegally questioned employees and threatened to take away their pay raises ahead of a January 2023 union vote meeting. The complaint and notice of hearing were made yesterday, and the agency said “It is the first step in the NLRB’s General Counsel litigating the allegations after investigating the charges and finding merit.”

The NLRB spokesperson told Quartz the agency “will continue to seek settlement,” but if both sides cannot reach an agreement a hearing will be held with an NLRB administrative law judge. Depending on the ALJ’s decision, the outcome could be appealed to the five-member Board, then to a federal appeals court, with the possibility of further review up to the Supreme Court, a trajectory noted in related reporting.

The Louisville filing is the latest strand in a wider web of complaints: an NLRB spokesperson said there are 62 other unfair labor practice charges against Trader Joe’s that regional officers are still processing and that have not advanced to settlement or complaint. Minnesota Reformer lists allegations across those matters that include illegally firing a union worker, posting false information about the union, unlawfully interrogating union workers, threatening to freeze wages if employees unionized, giving union workers worse retirement benefits, and forcing workers into unlawful “captive audience” meetings.

Geography matters in the docket. Minnesota Reformer reports most complaints stem from a Trader Joe’s in Hadley, Massachusetts, while workers at a downtown Minneapolis location are witnesses in a trial concerning alleged retirement benefit cuts. The new Louisville allegation specifically ties the threatened pay-raise action to a January 2023 union vote meeting at that store.

Trader Joe’s is also mounting a constitutional defense before labor officials. At an NLRB hearing in Connecticut on January 16, Trader Joe’s attorney Christopher Murphy of Morgan Lewis argued that the agency is “unconstitutional,” language Quartz summarized as the board being “structured unconstitutionally.” Minnesota Reformer notes Morgan Lewis represents SpaceX, which has pursued a similar constitutional attack in federal court in Texas while facing NLRB prosecution for allegedly firing eight employees in 2022.

Related court excerpts deepen the record on alleged retaliation. A LawJustia document asserts that “proximity fails to convince us that Groeschel’s NLRB claims did not influence the company’s decision to suspend and later terminate Groeschel,” and that coworker Elizabeth Biddle “expressly stated that Groeschel’s NLRB charges prompted her outreach.” The LawJustia excerpt also notes management made “no effort to discuss the incident with the employee allegedly involved, Yambao,” who works at a Trader Joe’s in California, and recounts Groeschel’s discovery of a separate 401(k) fiduciary lawsuit affecting coworkers’ savings. Case: 24-60367 Document: 76-1 Page: 12 Date Filed: 02/18/2026 No. 24-60367.

The NLRB’s move to litigate the Louisville allegations lands amid a large slate of pending charges and a company-level constitutional challenge that, as Minnesota Reformer reported, “could pose an existential threat to the National Labor Relations Board.” Quartz reached out to Trader Joe’s for comment and will update accordingly; if no settlement materializes the next formal step will be an ALJ hearing followed by the multi-tiered appeals path laid out by the agency.