Unionizing the Strip Mall

Note: Current and former employees of HPB Dublin are under pseudonyms, due to concerns about retaliation.

The Half Price Books in Dublin, California, is not where you expect to find a union. Across the country, less than 1 in 20 retail workers are unionized. Suburban strip malls are often the most hostile terrain, especially at national chains. Half Price Books, the largest used book chain in the country, is no exception.

Against the odds, last year, this unassuming store in an East Bay suburb became the first Half Price Books in California to win a union. 

From the outside, the shop looks unassuming, at the end of a strip of big-box chain retailers. Walk inside, and hints of worker care and control start to pop out. Potted plants nestle in the cozy shelves, and old-school 70s rock wafts as customers mill about the store.

Near the back of the shop is the Buy Counter, where employees buy items from the public, assist the searchers, and manage inventory. While they work, booksellers banter about their plans for the Halloween décor or the flaws of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. Steve, who like all the workers in this story is using a pseudonym due to fear of retaliation, is one of the newer employees. He said that this is one of his favorite things about the job — when he first started, his coworkers’ “camaraderie and support really helped ease [him] to become part of the team.” Many workers say it’s why they stay on.

The Store

The booksellers have a lot in common. They’re all unabashed nerds, who love working with books and are passionate about their genres. Each of them curates a section of the store, and they take great care in their work. Mark, who runs the video game section, likes to tell a story about how he encountered an early-release version of the original Super Mario: “It was a developer test cartridge, dated 1983, and it wasn’t meant for public sale. I’ve never seen something like that before, and I probably won’t see it again, but I thought it was really cool.”

Many of the booksellers are also self-professed introverts. Some say they're neurodivergent — according to Nora, a veteran employee, this can actually be helpful at the chain, which demands high levels of organization and the ability to “create order out of chaos.” Many of them are artists — writers, painters, musicians, animators — who dream of bringing their work to a wider audience, while harsh economic reality keeps them here. 

The pay is just too low — new staff start at $16.96/hour, barely above the California minimum wage, and they work 35 hours a week with no overtime.

Amelia runs the classic literature section and writes horror in her free time. As she tells it, most employees here are trying to get started in life: “We’re in our mid-twenties, thirties, and then some people are even older. But people can’t really start families…” The pay is just too low — new staff start at $16.96/hour, barely above the California minimum wage, and they work 35 hours a week with no overtime. They get holiday bonuses, but these are a mere $300 before tax. To make it work, many workers live with their parents, or share housing with five or six others. 

The shop crew is overworked and understaffed, according to Amelia. Field leaders often set unreasonably high targets, like to shelve at least 2,500 books every month. At every turn performance is monitored and quantified, which determines their raises and whether they get to stay on the job. That means constant psychological pressure. “I really experience the alienation that Marx talked about,” she said.

Half Price Books management said that these goals are set by “local field leaders” and they could not comment on specific quotas.

By contrast, workers say a string of cruelties from local managers helped spark the union push. Steve, relatively new to the job, already had a story of a boss brushing off workplace injuries. Rushing with a loaded dolly to fill his monthly shelving quota, Steve once ran his back hard into a door. An hour later he still felt dizzy. When he asked his manager if he should get checked for a concussion, she asked, “Are you sure? It’s going to be a lot of paperwork.” But they did end up reporting the injury, according to Anne Von Feldt, regional manager, and they have since left the store. 

In response to a question about this response, Half Price Books said they have “multiple avenues to report any incidents or health concerns that happen in the workplace, and a report was, in fact, filed based on the situation described."

Speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation, another worker said that the "brutal” district manager had a habit of picking out people the manager thought were “weaker” and heavily disciplining them. For example, they required a new employee to increase his shelving numbers, even though he had a disability accommodation already established. 

When asked about this particular incident, Von Feldt responded that “we work with each individual based on their particular needs.”

The Owners

The gap between that reality and Half Price Books’ public image also raised the stakes for a union. The company presents itself as a progressive, family-owned business, dedicated to environmentalism and charity. It claims to inherit these values from its founders, Ken Gjemre and Pat Anderson, who instituted measures like profit-sharing, paternity leave, and early retirement. 

However, since a founder's daughter (known to her employees as “Boots”) took over the company over a decade ago, benefits have slowly been chipped away, while work has been computerized, making the environment more factory-like. The business has expanded aggressively into new markets — growing from 47 stores in 1993 to over 120 today. It even went into real estate, pouring several million dollars into its own mall, while the CEO bragged of owning 23 acres and a Texas hardware store for fun. 

By 2023, worker discontent was ripe for a union, even in Dublin. Nora, who helped start the union drive, said that they were inspired by the example of the chain's stores in Minnesota. “I don’t remember exactly how I found it,” they said, laughing. “I guess I was just really online.” 

In 2021, workers at all four Half Price Books shops in the state won elections to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the nation’s largest retail and grocery union. Next, in their first contract, they won 33% raises, protections against unjust firings, and trans rights in the workplace. Learning about those victories, Day and another coworker reached out to the same union, joined the national Discord server, and started having conversations with their fellow booksellers.

Half of the 17 coworkers in Dublin were friendly to the union idea right away. Turnover was high, owing to the low pay and the stress of the job, and many felt they had nothing to lose. About a third were unsure at the start. In order to build up confidence, supporters formed a group chat and pulled booksellers in one at a time: “Having a group chat helped so much, because it allowed all of us to talk outside of work without fear of being overheard or reprimanded by management,” said Parsons.

The Union

In September 2023, the union crew formally declared their intent to unionize. They planned the announcement for a day the CEO was supposed to visit, but she never showed up, even though the employees had been cleaning in preparation for weeks. In the months leading up to the union vote, management went on the offensive. In small captive-audience meetings, managers attempted to dissuade the employees from unionizing, arguing it “wouldn’t be good for company culture,” and asked what they could do to make the booksellers “feel like they didn’t have to unionize,” according to members. Howard Holt, an assistant manager who was friendly with employees, suggested to other managers that they raise wages, but that idea was quickly dismissed. 

Next came the waterworks. At one meeting with the union committee, the store manager read out a letter detailing how a union would make her job unbearable. Some workers found this messaging disingenuous, while some found it intimidating, given the meetings were run by their regional manager, and there was always a lawyer present. Mark, who was a firm supporter of the union, said management seemed to be “skirting the edge of what they could do legally.” (When asked for comment Von Feldt responded that they were “well within our legal rights.”)

Introverts or not, the union supporters worked diligently at talking with their uncertain coworkers, addressing their concerns one by one. A major worry was the fear of retaliation. Union supporters pointed out that they all had legal protections against firings for union organizing — and once they won the union, their job security would be much stronger. A staff organizer from UFCW, described by Nora as “badass,” helped address tricky questions over Zoom and give workers confidence they had backup. “I think the people who were initially on the fence felt better because there was already a good chunk of us who were so in favor of unionizing,” said Amelia.

Without a union, Steve would be saddled with more work, without extra pay, as soon as management could get away with it. 

Within a few months, the union supporters were winning over a solid majority. Steve said he was initially undecided because the bookstore job was much better than his “miserable and grueling” prior gig at Safeway. He became convinced after a conversation with a friend in a construction union, who argued that Half Price Books is a business focused on making profit. That meant that without a union, Steve would be saddled with more work, without extra pay, as soon as management could get away with it. 

On election day, in January 2024, the union swept in with 14 workers in favor and three against. Many rejoiced, but not all; Howard, the manager who had been a friendly ear for workers, was fired on what he said were false pretenses.

While the union is barely a year old, workers said they've changed the culture at the Dublin store already. Turnover has decreased dramatically, as a critical mass of workers decided to stick together, with a path to fight for better. Their sense of solidarity has grown across state lines. Soon after they unionized, the Dublin crew was surprised by a cake delivered to their door, courtesy of their union siblings in Minnesota. 

Next up comes bargaining a first contract. In the terms negotiated so far, they’ve won the right to wear union gear in the shop. The hardest fight may be to change the wage scales, away from management's metrics and favorites-based system to one with clear raises based on years worked. 

The bookshop workers expect corporate resistance to the contract they want. But after winning their union in this suburban strip, they are cautiously optimistic they can push through. 

“I think people in our generation feel very powerless,” Amelia said. “It feels good to fight for something.”