Brunswick Staples workers on Wednesday narrowly rejected forming a union.

The vote, overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, was six in favor, seven against.

“We’re disappointed,” said a former worker who declined to be identified.

The Brunswick Staples. Jason Claffey / The Times Record

Last year, the former worker and 11 others signed a petition seeking to unionize for better pay and benefits, among other demands. The worker said Staples then fired them for timecard fraud, a claim the worker denied. Other workers were fired or left for higher-paying jobs, leaving five of the petitioners remaining at the store while the company replaced the others with workers they knew would vote against unionizing, the former worker alleged.

“This is what they do,” said the former worker, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution by future employers. “They’ve been union-busting for decades.”

The former worker was allowed to vote Wednesday because they signed the petition prior to being fired.

A person identified as a store supervisor Wednesday said, “We’re not commenting.”

A Staples spokesperson issued this statement Thursday: “We are grateful to all of the associates, regardless of how they voted, for their professionalism and their continued support of Staples and the management team at the Brunswick store. As a team, we will continue striving to serve our customers for all of their working and learning needs.”

The spokesperson did not respond to the former worker’s claim the company hired workers it knew would vote against the unionization effort.

Had a majority voted to unionize, the store would have been the first Staples to unionize in the U.S. The company, founded in 1986, has 997 retail stores in the U.S., including 10 in Maine, and more than 34,000 workers, according to its website.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union has been representing the Brunswick workers who were trying to unionize. Union representative Jay Wadleigh said the company specifically hired replacement workers who are anti-union and used “fear and intimidation tactics” to convince others to vote against unionizing.

“The combination worked,” he said. “Organizing is very hard. … We knew the deck was stacked against us.”

The union is representing the former worker who was fired in a grievance they filed with the labor board, alleging they were fired for trying to unionize. The former worker said they want their job back.

“Hopefully I’ll be reinstated and go back to back to working at the job I loved,” they said. “Every day I was helping out different people from all around the community, whether it was helping them with a wedding, funeral, baby shower, last-minute report, major project or corporate presentation.”

The former worker said they are concerned about the workers still at the store who voted to unionize.

“There could be some retaliation as there was against me,” they said. “Now they’re just going to keep quiet and pretend it never happened and go back to doing their jobs and hope it magically gets better.”

They said pay at the store is $15–$18 an hour and benefits, offered only to non-managerial supervisors, are prohibitively expensive.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 11.5% of Maine workers are represented by unions.