Workers at an AutoZone in White Plains, New York, are seeking to become the first store at the US’s largest auto parts retailer to win a union election, set to begin 25 September, despite a heavy-handed union opposition campaign from the company.

LaborLab, a non-profit workers’-rights watchdog, estimates AutoZone has spent around $200,000 to oppose the unionization effort at the White Plains store, where 11 workers are eligible to vote to join the United Auto Workers Local 259. The estimate is based on external attorney costs and internal costs of executive salaries based on reports from workers at the store.

AutoZone did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The company has more than 6,800 retail stores in the US and reported a net income of $2.5bn in fiscal year 2025.

Nathan DuCongé has worked at an AutoZone store in White Plains, New York, for about two years, where he started as a sales associate making minimum wage.

“I just remember that being very low, but I needed it very badly, and so I accepted the job,” said DuCongé. “For a job that just essentially pays minimum wage, it just makes no sense, that you’re doing all of this work, which essentially is service sales, and you’re also expected to upsell certain products too.”

He explained that the idea to unionize came from the low pay and working conditions, but took off after he attended an Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee training session and met an organizer with United Auto Workers.

David Valencia, who also works at the AutoZone store in White Plains, said he began working there in May 2026, and became interested in the union after being scheduled to work the Fourth of July holiday and did not receive any sort of holiday pay or bonus for doing so.

“When I got my paycheck and saw that they didn’t pay anything extra when part-time employees leave their families for holidays and sacrifice the time that they have with their families to come to work, you don’t get anything extra, any recognition, and that just blew my mind,” Valencia said. According to Indeed, AutoZone only provides paid holidays for eligible full-time employees.

“Our goal is to get compensation, job security, just more things that closely reflect the value that we know that we bring to the company. We’re not getting close to what we’re worth,” Valencia added. “There is no bargaining when you’re alone. They’re only going to bargain when you’re together. So we don’t have a choice. Either we’re going to live in poverty and not be able to pay our bills, or we’re going to do this.”

DuCongé and Valencia both explained that AutoZone management caught wind of the union organizing drive after they had collected enough union authorization cards to file for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board.

They said the following day, the store became filled with regional and corporate managers and human resources executives.

“They had sent in a whole fleet of managers, they were flying in people from around the country, and it was very bizarre, because even customers were kind of noticing how many managers were in the store,” said DuCongé.

He noted the response from AutoZone was initially asking how they could help, but switched to deterring unionizing after the group issued a letter to management announcing their intent to unionize.

“They were pulling people into the back. They had these long meetings where they would read: ‘Hey, we don’t think that the union is good. Here’s all the reasons why,’” said DuCongé.

He explained that AutoZone threatened to delay the union election by challenging DuCongé’s eligibility to participate, and promoted him to a supervisor position. He says the issue caused the union election petition to be withdrawn initially in late July, then refiled in August.

“We essentially had no choice. If we wanted to get to an election, I had to sacrifice my eligibility as a worker,” he said.

DuCongé provided recordings where, he said, he is told by his manager “we will accept your invitation to fire you”, although DuCongé said he had never suggested that, and was told his social media posts were being monitored.

He also shared a screenshot of AutoZone CEO Phil Daniele’s Facebook account appearing as an account that had watched one of his Facebook stories about the union campaign.

Several letters from AutoZone management to workers plead for them to vote against the union, citing union dues and claiming “you could actually end up with less” because “nobody knows what tradeoffs will be made in bargaining” and “your wages could go up or down”.

The letters did not cite the existence of any proposed union contract where workers would end up with less pay, nor explain why AutoZone or the union would propose regressive pay in a contract.

“I believe local 259 will destroy the mutual respect, teamwork and culture you and I have built at store 2976,” one management letter states.

LaborLab, with the help of workers in the store, identified at least 11 corporate executives at AutoZone who have appeared at the White Plains, New York, store whom they say were there to deter workers from organizing, and several regional and district managers.

The Teamsters previously attempted to unionize an AutoZone distribution center in the early 1990s. They lost the election, though the National Labor Relations Board subsequently ordered a rerun election due to AutoZone’s conduct during the election, which included prohibiting union discussions at work, threatening workers with loss of their jobs and withholding scheduled pay increases.

“Seeing the amount of money, the managers, everybody that they’re sending in, it really kind of shows that you can make change at the store,” concluded Valencia. “You can make change within the company because the fact that you’re unionizing it and you’ve got this kind of a response is actually a good thing. It means that you really are out there changing things, and I believe that if we can do it, and hopefully we do win, then everybody else can too.”