Worker firing the latest chapter in AutoZone's relentless union-busting campaign

It was not a shock to Nathan DuCongé when one of his bosses at AutoZone told him he was being fired. 

“AutoZone is terminating your employment as a result of your failure to act appropriately as a manager by engaging in and/or facilitating union activity,” a regional manager named Tammy Hamilton told DuCongé over his protestations that firing him was illegal, according to a recording he provided to The Chief.  “Despite repeated instruction not to advocate for the union you continued to participate and or facilitate union activity at the store.” 

DuCongé’s dismissal came one day after the historic organizing drive he began in April finally bore fruit with a six to four election victory in favor of unionizing with United Auto Workers Local 259, forming the nation's first-ever union at an AutoZone. But DuCongé, a parts equipment manager at the White Plains AutoZone and the union's principal organizer, was blocked by AutoZone management from voting in the election. 

The company insisted DuCongé was a supervisor and had threatened the union with a monthslong court dispute. DuCongé and the union, seeking a speedy election, refiled the unionization petition without DuCongé in the unit but with two new workers that management had transferred into the store with the specific goal of disrupting and voting against the union, workers said.  

The tactic was just one of many of what DuCongé called “classic-union busting stuff” that management employed when they caught wind of the union effort in July.

17 managers brought in to bust union

The tactics included repeated captive audience meetings, constant surveillance, threats of discipline for supporting the union and more. AutoZone dispatched 17 managers to the White Plains locations from Memphis (where AutoZone is headquartered), Indiana, California, Florida and elsewhere in a bid to stop the union and keep watch over workers’ conversations. 

“AutoZone was trying to do everything possible to destroy us, to destroy our union,” DuCongé said on Monday. "It was a show of force. To intimidate us to make sure we don’t even think about talking about the union."   

Despite his title, DuCongé insisted he was not a manager and did not have firing, hiring or disciplining power.

In total, AutoZone spent over $200,000 paying managers and attorneys to engage in the union busting campaign according to an estimate from Labor Lab, a workers’ rights non-profit watchdog that estimates employers' anti-union costs. Days after AutoZone fired DuCongé, management fired a supervisor at the store for failing to stop the union, he said. 

A spokesperson for the company did not respond to a request for comment on the outcome of the vote or firing of DuCongé. AutoZone has more than 6,800 retail stores in the United States and employs more than 111,000 people.

In Fiscal Year 2026 the company reported a profit of $1.3 billion.

"Management hired all the possible anti union consultants and spent a boatload of money to defeat them," UAW Region 9A Director Brandon Mancilla said in a social media post after the AutoZone vote. "But the workers made it clear that you can’t beat good organizing."

An AutoZone location in Brooklyn. The company brought in 17 managers to disrupt the nascent union effort at a White Plains location, spending over $200,000 on the anti-union campaign according to a worker organizing watchdog.

Harper Freeman/ The Chief

EWOC connection

Michael DiGiuseppe, the vice president of Local 259 who originally reached out to DuConge and helped organize the workers, said that management was going on a “hatchet spree” of firings as a result of the vote. 

DiGiuseppe and DuCongé were connected by a UAW member that DuCongé met at a training put on by the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. EWOC is a worker organizing project aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America formed in 2020 that has been at genesis of numerous retail and restaurant worker union campaigns in the city and across the U.S.

DuCongé said he didn't go into the EWOC training with the plan of unionizing his workplace but was convinced by the UAW member and others at the training to do so.

He said he's read works by several other union organizers including those at Amazon and Starbucks that inspired DuCongé to take action. He felt that his tight-knit store would be the perfect incubator for the nation's first-ever AutoZone union but knew from his readings that management would crack down hard.

“I knew that the second I took that first step that there's no going back,” he said. “That was when I took that leap of faith and just started organizing from there. We didn’t know it was going to be possible but here we are." 

'The company is insane'

DiGiuseppe told The Chief that in the days leading up to the Sept. 25 vote he was unsure what the outcome would be and feared it would ultimately be a five-to-five tie, handing the union a loss in heartbreaking fashion, as what happened to workers at a Trader Joe’s in a lower Manhattan in in 2023. 

“Of course I’m surprised,” he said of the result. “The psychological warfare that these workers had to go through. ... It was a constant pressure cooker.” 

A seasoned organizer who has helped foment union campaigns at other service centers in New York City and the surrounding area, DiGiuseppe said the union-busting campaign at AutoZone was unlike anything he had experienced before. 

“This company is insane. They treated this like it was the end of the world,” he said. “I've never seen anything like it.” 

Despite the rabid union busting and his dismissal, DuCongé is hopeful the small union can grow into a larger wave at the company. 

"Anybody who's interested in forming a union at their AutoZone, we want anybody interested in that to reach out to us,” he said.  "Their union busting certainly works, but not well enough."