Employees at the New Seasons Market in Cedar Hills are looking to come under union representation after filing for a union vote on Nov. 28.

A New Seasons Market store in Beaverton is the latest in the chain to start the process of unionizing in the years following a big-business buyout.

At the Cedar Hills store, employees of New Seasons Market cite scheduling, stagnant wages and attendance policies as reason to begin the campaign. Those complaints are similar to those voiced by employees of other New Seasons stores that have moved to unionize in recent months.

Cedar Hills store workers filed for a union vote with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday, Nov. 28, in news first reported by Northwest Labor Press, just six months after employees at a Hillsboro store decided to do the same.

Cedar Hills New Seasons Market, at 3495 S.W. Cedar Hills Blvd., is the ninth union filing across New Seasons’ 20 stores this year — the sixth in the last six months — and it would be the first suburban store to unionize, if the vote passes.

Maggie Myers, one of the Cedar Hills movement organizers, said in a press release that she has worked at New Seasons for 11 years and that the new owners are “losing touch” with staff.

“A lot of us who work here care about this company and the work we do and want to see staff have more of a say in how things operate,” Myers said in the release. “I think the leadership of New Seasons does not understand that what many of us are asking for is more than just benefits and perks — we’re asking for respect and to be treated as the stakeholders the company claims we are.”

Complaints have emerged over the last few years as a result of changes following New Seasons Market’s 2019 buyout by Good Food Holdings, a U.S. subsidiary of E-mart, the largest retailer in South Korea.

New Seasons Market, which focuses on locally produced goods, is headquartered in Portland and was founded in 1999. It currently operates 19 stores in the Portland metro area — including one store in Vancouver, Washington — and one more in Northern California.

Outside of Portland proper, the Hillsboro store and the Sellwood store voted against joining UFCW Local 555 and the New Seasons Labor Union, respectively, earlier this year.

The Hillsboro location at Orenco Station had been in talks with Tigard-based UFCW Local 555. It was the only New Seasons store that moved to unionize this year outside of the recently formed New Seasons Labor Union, by which the two unionized stores’ workers are now represented.

The new union was created the same day in May that Hillsboro filed its paperwork with the National Labor Relations Board.

Earlier this year in Portland, the Slabtown, 2170 N.W. Raleigh St., and the Seven Corners, 1954 S.E. Division St., locations voted in favor of union representation.

Four other Portland stores are in the process leading up to a union election after having officially filed with the Labor Relations Board: Woodstock, 4500 S.E. Woodstock Blvd.; Grant Park, 3210 N.E. Broadway St.; Concordia, 5320 N.E. 33rd St.; and Arbor Lodge, 6400 N. Interstate Ave.