Workers vote against first unionizing effort at Home Depot

(CNN) — Workers at a Home Depot in Philadelphia overwhelmingly voted against becoming the first store in the chain to be represented by a union.

The National Labor Relations Board, which oversees union elections, reported that only 51 employees voted to join Home Depot Workers United, and 165 voted against it.

The store, at 4640 Roosevelt Blvd. in Philadelphia, has about 275 employees.

Vincent Quile, the lead organizer of the group, told CNN at the time the union filed for the election that he was inspired by successful union representation votes at an Amazon distribution center in Staten Island, New York, the first union win at the online retail giant, and more than 200 successful votes at various Starbucks locations nationwide.

But union organizing campaigns are difficult. Since winning the vote at the Staten Island facility, the Amazon union has lost votes at two other distribution centers, one in Staten Island, and one near Albany, New York, and withdrawn a petition to hold a vote at a California location.

And although there has been a 58% surge in organizing elections so far this year, unions have lost about 31% of the votes concluded through September, the most recent figure available from the NLRB. That means workers at 344 businesses voted against joining a union.

That’s still a better percentage of wins by union organizers compared to some previous years. In the first nine months of 2021, unions won just 46% of the organizing votes held.

Home Depot has roughly 2,000 US stores and 437,000 employees.