In 2022, when the MOM’s Organic Market store in Baltimore became the first of the company’s locations to unionize, some shoppers were surprised it didn’t already have a union, given the chain’s stated commitment to  social responsibility and environmentalism.

“Being fortunate is a state of mind,” “compassion is the antidote to judgement” and “the more we let go, the less we suffer” are among the core values the company embraces, along with “climate-friendly foods” and a recycling center accepting everything from batteries to holiday lights to old shoes.

Only workers in the Hampden location and another MOM’s store in College Park are represented by unions out of the company’s two dozen stores across six states and the District of Columbia.

Some Hampden MOM’s staffers are now organizing to call attention to what they say is discrimination intended to punish them and weaken the union, as their contract is set to expire later this year.

Compared to other MOM’s stores, the Hampden workers receive lower weekend pay and have fewer paid holidays, a spokesperson for the workers told The Brew.

When the collective bargaining agreement was ratified in September 2023, Hampden workers got pay boosts of $2/hour on weekends and $5/hour on five holidays: New Year’s, Martin Luther King Jr., July 4th, Labor Day and Christmas.

About 15 months later – for non-union MOMs stores only – pay boosts of $4/hour on weekends were announced, along with an extension of the $5/hour holiday pay rate to nine holidays: adding New Year’s eve, the day before Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas eve.

After employee complaints, the starting pay at the Hampden store was increased to $17/hour, more in line with other MOM’s locations.

But, noting that Hampden is the chain’s busiest location, employees say the weekend and holiday pay disparities and other employment issues are unfair to workers, fly in the face of those core values and urge company founder and CEO Scott Nash to rectify them.

“Ask him, ‘Why is one of your top-performing stores and one of the busiest stores in the company making the same pay as one of the slowest stores in the company, White Marsh, and at the same time not getting the same level of benefits that store gets?” a former MOM’s employee said, in an interview with The Brew.

This person and other former MOM’s workers have been speaking out on behalf of the Hampden store’s workforce (approximately 90 people) because “no-strike/ no lockout” language in the collective bargaining agreement prevents current employees from speaking out at risk of termination.

The campaign has assembled a website, begun to put up signage around the city and plans to publicize its efforts more in the coming weeks.

“Not being paid enough to pay my BGE bill, auto insurance, feed my kids, help my friends, and also have enough money to eat regular meals until my next paycheck would hit, finally led me to leave the company,” a former employee said in a statement on the website.

Another ex-employee, who previously worked at two other MOM’s locations, said work at the Hampden store “was the most non-stop and the most physically taxing.”

This person described “surveillance and intimidation” tactics during the unionization drive and thanked nearby neighborhoods for “putting pressure on the company to act in good faith during negotiations.”

Workers say the primary motivation in unionizing at the time (they joined the Teamsters Local 570 ) was low pay as well as “disparities in how employees were treated in scheduling, work assignments and discipline.”

Me Too and Mouse Droppings

The Brew’s efforts to reach MOM’s management have been unsuccessful.

Calls and emails to Nash and other officials of the Rockville-based company, asking multiple questions about the workers’ allegations, were not returned.

Those questions included other allegations, including that the company has failed to hire professional exterminators leading to employees at the Hampden store “having to handle hazardous waste, ie clean up mouse droppings.”

Anther complaint centered on a point-based system of performance monitoring, “with team members unable to see their own points so there’s no way to know what they do or don’t have on you, whether it’s even true or not.”

But the main issue is the weekend and holiday benefit pay disparity.

How is the nearly 40-year-old company able to pay union workers less than others?

The ex-employees say workers made a key concession under pressure from the company’s lawyers during negotiations to reach the first collective bargaining agreement.

They said MOM’s refused to allow the contract to include a “me too” clause that would have ensured that any favorable economic benefit given to workers at any MOM’s location would also be given to workers in Hampden.

“Apparently the workers didn’t fully understand the contract. They had help from the local but they were, like, grocery store workers doing their best,” the former employee said. “MOM’s had three lawyers in those negotiations at all times, and they played every trick in the book.”

The “me too” issue is sure to come up again in negotiations that will take place ahead of the current collective bargaining agreement’s expiration in September.

“That’s going to be something that they’re going to stick to real hard,” the former employee said. “In the meantime, the company is happy to have it in place so so they can jerk Hampden around like they’re doing right now.”