In January, Passional Boutique and Sexploratorium, a sex shop on Philadelphia’s South Street with a reputation for LGBTQ inclusivity, laid off its entire staff. The layoffs came just over a month after Passional workers asked store owner Kali Morgan to voluntarily recognize their union.

Morgan has announced that she is planning to sell Passional. Former employees say that she told them that she laid them off because the prospective buyer will only “work with their own family members in the store”; the workers say they think the layoffs were a response to their effort to unionize. Last week, Jacobin contributor Sara Wexler spoke with one of the laid-off workers, Greer Turner, about the organizing effort and the layoffs.