When Meg Benz, 46, joined Jewish Family Services (JFS) in February 2023, she wanted to make a positive impact on the world. Working as a pantry assistant at the Harvey Kornblum Jewish Food Pantry, which is part of JFS, seemed like a natural fit.
By the end of her first year, Benz had earned a reputation as the “golden child” among her supervisors and colleagues. But that changed after some JFS employees decided to form a labor union in March 2024, and four months later, as JFS Workers United (JFSWU), voted to unionize with the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
After Benz volunteered to serve as a worker negotiator, she said supervisors began moving her to different areas of the pantry whenever she happened to be working near another employee.
“By the time I left [JFS], I was spending several hours returning phone calls and sorting food by myself,” she said, adding that over time she began to dislike her job and “could not stay at a place that was turning me bitter.”
For the past 17 months, JFSWU and JFS have been negotiating the organization’s first-ever union contract. On Dec. 2, Miriam Seidenfeld resigned after seven years as the chief executive officer of JFS. Two days later, workers defeated a stipulation election—which would have essentially ended—part of their union with the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
Together, the two events represent an inflection point for negotiations.
Where negotiations stand
The Light spoke to 18 people for this story, including current and former JFS employees, executives, the board president, union negotiators, and community members associated with the union effort. Several asked to remain anonymous, worried about possible reprisals. Nonetheless, each one said that JFS and its programs are a crucial part of the St. Louis community and provide aid to some of the most vulnerable in society.
JFS was founded in 1871 as the United Hebrew Relief Association after the Great Chicago Fire. Currently, JFS has a staff of roughly 60 employees. The agency serves over 60,000 people, both Jewish and non-Jewish, ranging from Holocaust survivors and older adults to those in need of counseling and therapy as well as the food insecure.
Since JFSWU began organizing, JFS’ legal bills have risen dramatically. Most of the money was for services performed by Ogletree Deakins, known for its work on the management side of labor disputes. JFS’ legal expenses totaled $225,687 last year, up from $24,109 in 2023.
When asked about the increased cost, Megan T. Wilson, president of the JFS board of directors, said, “When a staff votes to unionize, this is the process we need to undertake. This is the money we spent in order to negotiate in good faith with the union.”
JFS has had a decades-long relationship with Ogletree and has relied on the firm for counsel on a range of legal matters, not only those related to the union dispute.
The petition for this latest vote was started by Brenda Finke, former chief financial officer of JFS.
The union objected to Finke’s petition before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), arguing that she filed it on behalf of a unit she doesn’t belong to. At JFS, the union is divided into two groups—professional and non-professional employees, such as pantry workers. Finke is part of the professional unit. The Dec. 4 vote involved only the non-professional group.
One worker said Finke has “been a question mark” because it is not clear if her new job – assisting the current CFO – makes her a part of management or not. Finke did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
After the vote, Wilson said JFS will continue to respect employees’ decisions regarding the union, focus on fulfilling the agency’s mission of helping the community and create “an environment that nurtures open communication and professional growth.”
Wilson emphasized that the petition to end part of the union was “initiated by JFS staff, not JFS leadership or the board.”
Pressures inside the workplace
Kelly Baker, 35, a school-based therapist, joined JFS in August 2022. Soon after starting, she noticed how colleagues often felt overwhelmed and remembers being told by supervisors that employees should not talk among themselves and take any concerns only to supervisors.
“Once we did start talking to each other, we realized we are all feeling similarly about stressors,” she said.
Mal Burrow, 27, a former Kornblum pantry assistant who uses they/them pronouns, worked at JFS from August 2022 to November 2023 and helped organize the union, hoping it would provide workers with more protections.
Burrow said the workplace was highly stressful and that multiple employees left because of negative interactions with supervisors that took a toll on their well-being. They said expectations and policies were often unclear.
“[JFS management] wanted to be able to do whatever,” Burrow said. “It never felt like they were willing to commit to a singular vision.”
According to some employees, the lack of clarity existed across positions at JFS. Therapists said they were unsure whether to prioritize one-on-one sessions to maximize billable hours or focus on group work to reach the largest number of clients.
Psychological testers reported confusion about whether parents needed to remain in the building or could be in their car during hours-long tests and noted that rules on where testing could occur frequently changed.
Several current and former employees mentioned an inconsistent application of the dress code. They said supervisors reprimanded them for wearing black denim or sneakers, even though they later saw supervisors and other employees wearing the same things.
Burrow said working at JFS felt like working for a corporation that prioritized its bottom line over everything, including employee treatment.
The workers are hoping that unionizing will lead to clearer policies and expectations; explicit job descriptions; a more transparent pay structure; better wages and family benefits; union representation when filing grievances and meeting with supervisors; improved working conditions; and stronger employee protections.
“If there’s a hypothetical workplace of four people, they deserve protections on the job and a chance to have a real say in working conditions,” Baker said.
Negotiating pace and tactics
Jason Vellmer, 47, is the area director for District 6 of CWA and negotiator on behalf of JFSWU. He views the results of the stipulation vote as evidence that a first union contract is inevitable.
Notably, JFS is not the only organization in the St. Louis Jewish community to unionize. The Jewish Community Center has had a union since 1975, which currently includes 54% of its roughly 150 employees.
“We’ve been battling for about 17 months with no relief, and then all of a sudden, things are starting to move in our favor,” Vellmer said. “I believe that JFS has the opportunity to end the anti-union rhetoric that’s been happening since the beginning.”
Seidenfeld described negotiations as a “tedious and thorough process, led by the union.”
“While our timeframe is not unusual, what is unusual is that it took six months for the union to submit its first proposals,” she said.
Benz, the former Kornblum pantry assistant, said JFSWU wanted to start negotiating immediately after the union vote in July 2024 but was told that JFS did not have time to meet with until November. Proposals could not be submitted until negotiations started and ground rules had been agreed upon.
Soon after the union went public, JFS held an emergency managers’ meeting, where, according to one attendee, a PowerPoint slide read, “JFS is against unionizing,” in capital letters.
The manager at the meeting said she expected anti-union rhetoric from a corporation, not a social services agency.
Barry Rosenberg, a Washington University Brown School of Social Work professor who led Jewish Federation of St. Louis for two decades, said nonprofit unions are relatively uncommon.
“You might see unions in larger national organizations or in industries akin to for-profits,” he said. “I think about hospital nurses.”
After JFSWU went public, JFS management asked the NLRB to separate the union into several bargaining units, arguing that employees in different departments perform distinct types of work.
Vellmer said that in his experience, this approach can diminish workers’ collective influence in negotiations.
He also said that when JFSWU agreed to allot five to seven hours toward negotiating per month, JFSWU thought it would be the bare minimum rather than the norm. Since November 2024, 19 negotiation sessions were scheduled, of which JFS canceled six.
Baker said some sessions began with JFS asking for a break right away, and that their negotiators frequently came to meetings without having read proposals. “They’re pretty good at meeting the bare minimum legal requirements,” she said.
JFSWU and JFS agreed to negotiate non-economic issues before addressing pay and other economic matters. After 17 months, talks over non-economic issues for one union group are still ongoing.
Since unionizing, employees have not received end-of-year raises, with both sides pointing fingers.
JFS says it cannot issue raises before a union contract is signed, as the NLRB would view it as an unlawful bribe. Seidenfeld stressed that JFSWU has made no wage proposals.
“The union has not submitted any wage proposal,” she said, “because of this, wages have not been negotiated.”
Vellmer added that until economic issues are negotiated, JFSWU cannot submit wage proposals. He also said JFS could continue business as usual but is choosing to withhold raises.
“JFS could give wage increases, and if we don’t feel that those raises were sufficient, we would ask for more,” he said.
Use of bulletin boards
Bulletin boards were a point of contention during negotiations, underscoring the pace of conversation.
JFSWU wanted to have union bulletin boards in the workplace to convey union-related information to interested employees. According to Benz, JFS did not want bulletin boards because the union might “post things that were politically inappropriate, unrelated to the union, or inflammatory.”
Vellmer said it took five sessions to resolve the bulletin board issue. “We’ve gotten stuck on issues that really shouldn’t be issues that we would get stuck on,” he said.
Wilson said that during ongoing negotiations, she hopes to discover “what the goals of the union are and what our staff are seeking,” and that so far, those goals are not “yet clear” to her.
After the vote what comes next
Wilson disputed the idea that JFS has not cooperated with the union, and said that going forward, JFS “will continue as we have over the past year to negotiate with the union in good faith.”
Baker said Seidenfeld’s resignation and defeating the stipulation election in a 7-2 vote on Dec. 4 only emphasize the need for JFS workers to have guaranteed protections. She hopes that going forward, negotiations will be more efficient.
“I feel like there’s an opportunity for a real reset,” she said. “I think the interim CEO and board can choose to approach us in good faith and address some of the real issues.”
Benz left JFS in Aug. 2025. She now works as an assistant manager at Schnucks, where she is a part of its union, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 655. She views working with the union as being integral to JFS’s larger mission.
“You would think that somebody whose job is to uplift the community would want to uplift their own employees,” she said.
