A picket is planned Wednesday afternoon outside the 23rd and Union PCC as organizers say they are pushing back on the Seattle grocery coop’s handling of its board elections.

The board battle has become a flashpoint in Seattle’s labor battles, the Seattle Times reports, as the candidate list includes two PCC employees:

But PCC’s upper management isn’t recommending that members vote for those workers, Donna Rasmussen, 56, and Laurae McIntyre, 69; it has its own preferred candidates. Per co-op rules, they’ve had to collect more than a thousand member signatures each to get their names on the ballot. What’s more, according to Rasmussen and McIntyre and their union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21, which is in contract negotiations with PCC, the co-op has called police on workers during signature-gathering efforts outside several of PCC’s 15 locations. PCC’s “response was pretty rough,” says Rasmussen, who works at PCC’s View Ridge store. “I was kind of surprised by that.”

Underlying the fight, PCC and its workers’ union UFCW 21 are bargaining a new contract.

The union and supporters will be in front of the Central District PCC Wednesday afternoon. “PCC employees, customers are objecting to PCC’s interference in its own board elections, and showing support for good wages and health care for PCC’s frontline workers,” organizers write. “Voting app glitches, one-sided election materials, and calls to police are marring the normally sedate co-op member voting at PCC.”

UFCW 21 has posted a “Progressive Voter Guide” about the issues and purchased advertising space across Seattle media, including CHS, to promote the issues.

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