Workers Say Wedge Co-op Restricting Freedom to Express Solidarity With Palestinians
Workers and co-op members are organizing against a new dress code policy that they say restricts their freedom of expression in the workplace.
By Amie Stager | July 1, 2025
Workers at the Wedge Community Co-op’s Lyndale location, represented by UFCW Local 1189, and workers at the Linden Hills location, represented by UFCW Local 663, have been organizing against a new dress code policy that they say restricts their workplace freedom to express solidarity with Palestinians.
“We’re not demanding that the co-op work under a new model,” says Nadia Langley. In August 2024, Langley began working as a produce stocker at the Lyndale location, the first unionized co-op in Minnesota. “What we’re really doing is just asking for the workers to have an ability to voice their own dissent of a genocidal force,” she says. “I think if any place was going to let us do that, I would hope that it would be a co-op.”
Workers say the new policy was first detailed in an email by CEO Nick Seeberger on March 20 and went into effect on April 1. According to workers, they can only wear items with social or political symbols or messages that are aligned with the values and causes the co-op supports. Some of those causes include food justice, Black Lives Matter, and LGBTQ+ rights.
At the time, Local 1189 was bargaining for a contract that workers ratified on May 13. But workers say efforts to address the new policy at the bargaining table went nowhere. During bargaining, workers say the union introduced a proposal that would return to the previous workplace culture in which workers frequently expressed their own political statements, with the addition of an oversight committee to address any issues. But according to workers, management did not accept the proposal, and has said they prefer to use a different mechanism, the labor-management committee (LMC). (Wedge management did not return a request to comment.)
The LMC consists of representatives from both labor and management and meets regularly. Langley says it is protected in the contract and has been used in the past to address and contest items that might not be lined out in the contract. While the current LMC tries to resolve the issue, the union says the grievance is on hold.
“We will not get a response until the next LMC [in July], but we are optimistic that the workers, community, and the company can find a harmonious resolution,” president of UFCW 1189 Claire Van den Berghe wrote to Workday Magazine in an email after the LMC met on June 25. “We are committed to supporting our members in any way possible and we know the greater Wedge community is, too.”
According to workers, there was a weeklong trial period after Seeberger announced the policy in which no disciplinary action was taken against workers who violated the policy. After the policy went into effect, 15 workers were disciplined or sent home for wearing pins that management deemed to be in violation of the policy.
According to Quinlan Bock, who has worked as a produce stocker at the Linden Hills location since September 2023, workers began wearing pins after UFCW 663 passed a ceasefire resolution in December 2023. “Then somebody got a button maker, so there was a ramp-up of wearing pins in October 2024, and a ramp-up of customer complaints up until February 2025,” he says.
Some of the pins said “UFCW 663 Labor for Palestine,” but Bock says they weren’t associated with the Labor for Palestine group that has formed locally. “That’s the strongest language that was ever used,” says Bock.
Elizabeth Tannen has been an on-and-off co-op member for the last six years. She has organized with Jewish Voice for Peace and has spoken up in support of the workers, helping to write an open letter urging the Wedge board not to restrict workers’ freedom of expression that she says over 600 people have signed so far.
According to workers, a co-op member emailed the CEO complaining about workers wearing the “Labor for Palestine” pins. Then, in February 2025, a small group of co-op members attended a board meeting and complained to the board about the pins. Tannen wasn’t there, but said her understanding is that the group told Board members they felt the pins were antisemitic. “They said they were being made to feel unsafe or unwelcome based on employees wearing these messages,” says Tannen. Management handed down the new policy in March.
According to workers, no one has been terminated for their actions related to the new dress code policy, but some who did receive disciplinary actions were pushed closer to termination. They say that the co-op uses a points system for attendance: two points is a verbal warning, four is a written warning, and six points lead to termination.
“People are demonstrating their commitment to anti-imperialist work, and that has been so inspiring, and I would hate for that to be forgotten or obscured,” says Langley. “If people were terminated over this, that’s a huge decision to be making.”
Workers decided to prioritize engagement with co-op and community members. They are encouraging people to continue shopping at the Wedge and to voice support for workers. “People having memberships and speaking out is an important piece of leverage,” says Bock. “What I’ve sensed from the community is that there’s a lot of drive and desire to take back control of the co-ops and make them, not as radical as they were in their inception, but more community-driven.”
Over 100 co-op members attended a virtual board meeting on April 28, spoke in support of workers, and received what they say was another scripted verbal response by Seeberger. Then, they escalated by holding a rally in front of the Lyndale location on May 10, where Tannen spoke alongside workers.
“We’re in a really terrifying moment in this country for many reasons,” says Tannen. “But for me, one of the most chilling things, and this is basically what I said in the speech, is the really aggressive, violent repression of speech, specifically around Palestine. It’s not going to stop there. The Trump administration wants to silence literally anyone who disagrees with them on any issue.”
Workers say they have noticed a change in perception on the Palestine solidarity movement, as news of violence at aid distribution sites in Gaza report that Israel’s military has been attacking Palestinians waiting for food. “These specific struggles in our workplace are bringing coworkers and people who knew about this to see the connections to labor, laborers in Palestine, and our food systems,” says Bock. “The Wedge’s mission is creating community through strong local food systems. It’s abhorrent to say we as workers are working to accomplish that when our tax dollars are going to the starvation, blockade, and genocide of a people.”
By Amie Stager|July 1, 2025
Amie Stager is the Associate Editor for Workday Magazine.
