A: MOM's Organic Market is a corporation headquartered in Rockville, Maryland. All 20+ locations are owned by this corporation, which is solely owned and led by founder and CEO Scott Nash.
MOM's is not a small business. It is not worker-owned or a co-op (collectively operated). It was not founded by a mom and is not woman-owned.
A: The Hampden location organized with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters - Local 570. Workers went public with their intent to unionize, and later voted to unionize, in summer 2021. Contract negotiations with MOM’s began in September 2021 and lasted until September 2022. The collective bargaining agreement (CBA) was ratified and went into effect on September 12, 2023.
The primary motivation in unionizing was the low pay (at the time starting wage was $15/hour, less than a living wage) and the massive disparity in how employees were treated in scheduling, work assignments, and discipline, with simple favoritism being the driving force behind all of these. There were also safety and health concerns, with sharp and rusty shelving, and pregnant women being told they were not allowed to have a chair while working the cash registers.
As soon as workers informed the company of their intent to unionize, and months before negotiations actually started, MOM's began an extensive spying and intimidation campaign. Almost immediately, employees of the company’s "central office" (corporate headquarters) began arriving to allegedly “Help out with the truck.” These employees ranged from office workers to upper management and C-suite members. They would act friendly but would overtly press team members for information about “Those union people.” At the same time, the company brought in a pair of union busting experts who called themselves “Union Educators.” Groups of employees would be taken to what workers began calling “captive audience meetings” where these two men would tell workers they wanted to make sure that they “knew all the facts.” These supposed facts would usually be thinly veiled threats that workers would make less money and that the company would be harsher on discipline if workers voted to unionize.
Despite these intimidation tactics, workers voted to unionize with 4 votes against and 57 in favor. As soon as the workers won their union election, the "Union Educators” and corporate employees all vanished.
A: During contract negotiations, MOM’s lamented that they were a small regional company and could not afford to have a unionized workforce, but at the same time had several highly-paid, well known anti-labor lawyers arguing in favor of the company.
A: Two MOM's locations are unionized with collective bargaining agreements in place: Hampden (Baltimore) with Teamsters Local 570, and College Park with UFCW Local 400.
A: During contract negotiations with the bargaining committee, MOM's refused to allow a "Me Too" clause in the collective bargaining agreement (CBA). A "Me Too" clause would have ensured that any favorable economic benefit given to workers at any MOM's location would also be given to workers in Hampden. The company is now using the absence of this clause to their advantage: discriminating against union workers by punishing them economically and attempting to weaken and dismantle the union.
When the CBA was ratified, Hampden workers secured pay boosts of $2/hour on weekends and $5/hour on 5 holidays (New Year’s Day, MLK Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Christmas Day) — economic benefits that did not exist before the union. Fifteen months after the CBA was ratified, MOM's announced they would offer pay boosts of $4/hour on weekends and the additional $5/hour on 9 holidays to non-union locations (adding New Year’s Eve, the day before Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, and Christmas Eve).
Union representatives asked the company to rectify the wage disparity, and union workers signed a petition saying they would accept the additional weekend pay and additional holidays without negotiation needed.
MOM's refused to rectify the weekend & holiday wage disparity.
MOM's raised the starting wage to $17/hour in November 2025, showing that they can choose to pay more than what is written in the CBA.
MOM's chooses not to.
A: There is extensive no-strike / no lock-out language in the CBA. This language, typical in collective bargaining agreements and intended to protect both the workers and the company, bars any current employee from saying anything that might harm the company or its image. As such, only former employees can get the word out. If current employees say anything negative about the company, they are violating the CBA and effectively writing their own termination form.
A: The current collective bargaining agreement for MOM’s Hampden expires on September 12, 2026. Negotiations will begin 30 days before that expiration date.
A: There are more former workers than there are current workers at MOM's. The company depends on turnover to keep workers at a disadvantage. We are some of the former workers you’ve probably seen over the years at the store who still care about how our friends and former coworkers at MOM's of Hampden are being treated by the company.