Dive Brief:

• A group of pharmacy workers in a Brooklyn, New York Target store won the vote to form a micro union – the first of the retailer’s stores to successfully form any kind of union, reports Reuters.
• Target said that it was “disappointed” by the vote and will appeal the National Labor Relations Board decision to allow the vote to proceed, especially since Target is in the process of selling its pharmacy business to CVS Health Corp.
• In 2011, the NLRB ruled that micro unions are “appropriate within a company’s operations when their members share ‘a community of interest,’” Reuters reports.

Dive Insight:

Micro unions have been a point of contention for employers since a U.S. appeals court upheld the 2011 decision. In 2014, the rule was applied to retailers in a case that involved fragrance and cosmetic department workers at Macy’s Inc., Reuters reports.

The National Retail Federation and other industry groups said the decisions “would wreak havoc on stores, pitting groups of employees against each other and forcing companies to negotiate with multiple unions that could have competing interests,” Reuters said. Union groups say the decisions are appropriate for the modern workplace, where “employees often are asked to staff multiple departments.”