Bartell Drugs has announced plans for their store at 5605 22nd Ave. NW.

After the building where the current store resides was sold last year, it was unknown if Bartell Drugs would reestablish their store following construction of a new building. Bartell announced last week they would indeed reopen a new store at the current location after construction of a new building.

Developers, Henbart LLC, have plans to construct a six-story building with 80 apartments, four townhouses, 21,000 square foot of office space and two levels of underground parking (131 spaces).

Back in December, Henbart LLC had announced they would be building the street level storefront with the capacity to accommodate Bartell Drugs.

The new store will be a 14,000 square foot space and will include free underground parking for Bartell Drugs customers.

Last March, Bartell Drugs opened their second store at 1500 NW Market Street. The new store will continue to serve Ballard customers after the Ballard Commons Park location closes in January of 2015.

“This is another milestone in our longtime commitment to Ballard. During construction of the new store, we look forward to serving customers at our Market Street location,” said George D. Bartell, chairman and CEO.

Currently the Ballard Commons store is a unionized store with 18 employees. It is unknown at this time whether the new store will be a union store.

“At this early stage there is not a determination as to whether the store will be “union” or nonunion”. Generally speaking, the decision whether a store is “non-union” or “union” is made by the employees—not the company,” Barry Bartlett, spokesperson for Bartell Drugs.

“In most cases, soon after a new location opens, we invite union representatives into the store to meet with employees (union representatives may sometimes contact employees at home or other times). At that time employees decide either way--based on the majority vote.”

Bartlett said that this process has been in place for many decades, and that Bartell Drugs strives to have a working relationship with the UCFW 21, the union that represents the 18 employees.

“It’s also important to note that we successfully operate both union and nonunion stores, and have done so for many years.”

Bartell Drug has 63 stores located in Washington (King, Snohomish and Pierce counties) and 1,700 employees in the Puget Sound area. 22 of those stores are union stores.

Tom Geiger, with UCFW 21, shared the Union’s opinion about the disparity between union and nonunion jobs.

“Labor laws in the US are out of balance in favor of employers. We believe that the laws should be changed to allow a fair process for workers to decide whether to go union or not without any interference from their employer,” said Geiger.

Geiger explained some of the benefits for union employee compared to nonunion employees. He said that the union workers have a much better health plan than non-union workers, and that Bartell can’t just change the wage or benefits for a union worker but can for non-union workers. He also said that union jobs are protected from unfair discipline from an employer.

Moreover, Geiger said that union jobs affect more than just union employees.

“Having more union jobs in a community raises the standard of living for everyone because the combination of wages and benefits will be much higher for union workers than those that are not union in the same industry.”

As the decision to be union or not develops, Geiger believes that the relationship between Bartell and UFCW 21 could be a lot better. But Bartlett contends that Bartell Drug is doing what they can for the 18 union employees.

“The company is committed to making every effort to accommodate employees at the 22nd Ave. NW store with available positions at other store locations. We are currently working with each employee individually to assess their interest in various job opportunities at our many locations in an effort to place them in a role and location that is most suitable,” said Bartlett.