This week in the War on Workers: What it takes to get Target to close for remodeling

A recap: Last summer, workers at a Target store on Long Island voted against joining a union, but in May, a National Labor Relations Board judge overturned the results and ordered a new election, citing intimidation of union supporters. Meanwhile, Target had closed the store for remodeling. Target almost never closes stores for remodeling, in case you were wondering. Now, Gawker's Hamilton Nolan, who has been all over this story from the beginning, is running emails from former Target employees about stores they worked in remaining open during remodeling:

During my tenure there, I helped facilitate many a remodel and let me tell you, they have streamlined the process to point where employees could execute them blindfolded. Never, I mean NEVER was a store "shut down" for this. Everyone just worked through the construction mess and counted the days to the grand re-opening. Target never wanted the "guest" (customer) to go some place else'even temporarily.

Unless closing a store for seven months could keep workers from joining a union, apparently. Nolan also has excerpts from the decision overturning the election. Workers were directly reprimanded by supervisors for talking about needing a union, told they couldn't talk about unions on Target property or in the entire mall in which the Target was located, and that if they voted to unionize, the store might close:
Of course, then they went ahead and closed the store anyway.

(Continue reading below the fold.)