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News and Updates
Retail Food
July 19, 2008
CASE FARMS POULTRY WORKERS FORCED TO WITHHOLD THEIR LABOR
June 26, 2008
Grocery Workers in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama Achieve Fair Agreement with Kroger Company
Grocery workers represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 1995 have reached a tentative agreement with their employer, the Kroger Company. The agreement covers 9000 members working at 92 Kroger stores (and one freestanding pharmacy) in middle and eastern Tennessee, southern Kentucky, and northern Alabama.
UFCW Local 1995 members stuck together in solidarity through months of negotiations to achieve a fair contract with Kroger—one with affordable, quality health care, wages that pay the bills, and a secure retirement. They reached that goal with an agreement that includes:
- Significant health care improvements for full-time and part-time workers;
- Pension security; and
- Significant improvements in wages in all areas of the agreement.
Workers will be meeting to vote on ratification of the agreement Saturday, June 28th through July 2nd.
Across the country in 2007-2008, UFCW members working at Kroger and other grocery stores nationwide have reached fair agreements making grocery jobs good, middle class jobs—the kind workers can raise a family on. For more on UFCW grocery negotiations across the country, please visit the Grocery Workers United website at www.groceryworkersunited.org.
June 4, 2008
UFCW Launches Campaign in Britain Against
One of America’s biggest unions, the 1.3 million-strong United Food and Commercial Workers union, today launched a UK campaign to expose “The Two Faces of Tesco.””
At a Westminster press launch chaired by Jon Cruddas MP, the union said that it is stepping up a campaign already begun in the United States to shame Tesco to talks on union recognition and employee pay and benefits.
The UFCW seeks to represent some of the lowest-paid and least secure retail workers in the USA, more than half of whom are women, and has been seeking talks with Tesco for two years since the world’s third-largest retailer announced its entry into the US grocery market. All attempts have so far fallen on deaf ears, and Tesco launched its chain of Fresh & Easy supermarkets in 2007 as non-union stores.
UFCW says that it is seeking the chance for dialogue, to build the same constructive partnership that Tesco enjoys in the UK with the shop workers’ union Usdaw, but Tesco refuses to meet.
So UFCW has brought the campaign to Britain. It believes that its new report – The Two Faces of Tesco – is a damning indictment of how Tesco operates different principles at home and abroad. The report also highlights what UFCW believes are stark contrasts between what Tesco says and what it does.
Speaking at the launch Jon Cruddas MP said:
“British companies which operate in the global marketplace should apply the highest standards in dealing with their workforce, both at home and abroad. What this dossier exposes about Tesco’s practices in the United States, in my view not only undermines Tesco’s reputation, but will also affect how people think about the fairness of British companies in general. I urge Tesco to put its stated principles and policies into practice and to start talking to these important stakeholders.”
The launch was also attended by UFCW member Jackie Gitmed, a cashier from a rival, unionised supermarket, and by UFCW’s campaigns director, Emily Stewart, who said:
“We were genuinely excited at the prospect of building a partnership with Tesco, so we are doubly appalled at the way it is behaving towards us and the many community groups which have tried and failed to meet with it.
“Tesco has a great reputation for employment rights and corporate responsibility in the UK, but this is a reputation which, in our view, is sullied by its behaviour in the USA.
“Our dossier exposes Tesco’s two faces, and we intend to campaign in Britain to show Tesco’s other face to British people, British investors and British politicians, in the hope that they will influence Tesco to stop and think again about how they conduct their business in America. We are asking for nothing more than Tesco already does here.”
Jackie Gitmed, a cashier from Ralphs Supermarket in Encino, California, with 32 years’ experience in unionised stores, added:
“We’re never going to be rich working for a grocery store, but we all deserve a shot at earning a living wage and health insurance we can afford, as well as the peace of mind to know that we won’t be let go at a moment’s notice.
“In my 32 years working with the protection of a union agreement, I have enjoyed job security and union-negotiated healthcare and pensions benefits. Our colleagues at Tesco’s Fresh & Easy stores don’t have this. I have flown from LA to London because this campaign is important. I hope it will make Tesco pay attention, so that my fellow workers in Tesco’s US stores can enjoy the benefits and opportunities they deserve.”
March 31, 2008
UFCW Members in Baltimore-Washington Reach Tentative Agreement with Grocers
Workers will vote on whether to ratify the agreement on Tuesday, April 1st.
The members of Baltimore-Washington area UFCW Local Unions 27 and 400 had the support of community and religious leaders, shoppers, sister unions and UFCW members nationwide in their effort to maintain affordable health care coverage and fair wages.
The coordinated effort in Baltimore-Washington is part of a UFCW nationwide unity bargaining program. By supporting each other regionally and nationally, as well as engaging customers and community members in their struggle, grocery workers are improving grocery industry jobs for themselves and their communities.
To learn more about other bargaining campaigns, go to: www.groceryworkersunited.org.
March 27, 2008
SUPERMARKET WORKERS NATIONWIDE MOBILIZE FOR GOOD JOBS AND AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Grocery workers are standing up to protect good jobs with affordable health care at supermarkets across the country today. Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union in multiple cities are outside of major supermarkets communicating with customers in support of the 26,000 Safeway and Ahold workers in Baltimore, Md., and Washington, D.C., who may be forced on strike because the companies refuse to offer a fair contract that reflects their success.
Supermarket giants Safeway and Ahold, owner of Giant Foods in the metro Washington, D.C. area, are refusing to provide access to affordable health care and living wages their employees have earned. This race to the bottom hurts communities who often have to bear the impact from greedy corporations that force hard-working families onto social services for basic needs.
Workers are taking action and reaching out to customers at Safeway and Ahold-owned stores coast-to-coast today, from Southern California and the Puget Sound to Chicago and along the East Coast.
UFCW members at Safeway-owned stores, Dominick’s and Genuardi’s, and Ahold-owned Stop & Shop stores are concerned about the companies’ bargaining agenda and how it could hurt the industry.
“Safeway and the other big grocery chains already reached agreements with workers in other parts of the country that provide affordable health care and decent wages. It’s really important that these companies treat all of its employees fairly,” says Melissa Champion, UFCW Local 21 member and Seattle Safeway employee.
Caitlin Lawson, UFCW Local 328, works at Ahold-owned Stop & Shop in Massachusetts. She said, “When we were fighting for health care and decent wages for part-timers, the workers in Baltimore and Washington took a stand with us. Now I’m proud to let my company know that I’m still in this fight for a fair contract for all supermarket workers.”
The contract covering workers in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore expires on March 29, 2008. Over the past 18 months, UFCW members have mobilized in unified actions to support supermarket bargaining. The central website, www.groceryworkersunited.com, has been a focal point for solidarity actions and coast-to-coast UFCW member solidarity.
Just this week, a grocery worker from Chicago posted a message to UFCW members on the East Coast encouraging solidarity. Jeff, a UFCW Local 1546 member, wrote, “Remember you are fighting not only for your contract talks, but for the rest of them across the nation. We will be watching here in Chicago because we will be starting grocery talks with Safeway near the end of the year.”
The actions today are the latest steps in the national unity bargaining movement among UFCW members working in the grocery industry. The UFCW represents 1.3 million workers, with nearly one million in the grocery industry.
October 9, 2007
CINCINNATI KROGER WORKERS PREPARE TO SHOW STRENGTH AND SOLIDARITY THROUGH STRIKE VOTE
Workers Taking Strike Authorization Vote to Fight Kroger’s Gaslight Era Bargaining Tactics
Washington, DC—Grocery workers represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) are fighting back against the Kroger Company’s nineteenth century bargaining tactics. Kroger seems to be operating under that century’s model of “robber baron bargaining”— pushing workers to the brink and forcing strikes, all to justify greedy demands at the bargaining table and in the community.
In Cincinnati, where 10,000 workers are involved in negotiations with Kroger, UFCW Local 1099 members are meeting at sessions throughout the day on Wednesday, October 10, 2007, to consider the company’s latest proposals. The workers’ bargaining committee is recommending that workers reject the proposals and vote to authorize a strike. Meetings and times can be found at www.ufcw1099.org.
“There’s no excuse for Kroger’s behavior,” said Lennie Wyatt, UFCW International Vice President and President of Local 1099. “This year, tens of thousands of Kroger employees have been pushed to the brink by their company and forced to vote to strike before Kroger gets serious at the bargaining table. These hardball tactics are an insult to Kroger employees and customers.”
It’s time to put an end to this kind of “crisis bargaining” where a profitable company like Kroger comes to the table making outrageous demands of its hourly workers—demanding devastating cuts to workers’ health care and other benefits.
UFCW members understand that the rising cost of health care in the U.S. is a crisis we all must face together. In previous contracts, Local 1099 members have worked diligently to lower health care costs. Workers are picking up their share. Their hard work has made Kroger the hugely profitable chain it is today.
But Kroger’s greed just keeps increasing. The company seems intent on driving workers to the brink of a strike, and threatening to disrupt tens of thousands of consumers in an attempt to extract even more from its workforce.
Kroger can’t have it both ways. CEO David Dillon crows to investors and the public that when Wal-Mart expands its operations, Kroger gains market share, increases sales and boosts profits. There’s no excuse, then, to claim that competition from the low-wage, no-benefit Wal-Mart should require workers to strike in order to save affordable health care.
Across the country, Kroger workers have reached agreements – without a strike – that provide for preventative health care benefits, affordable premiums, and quality care for workers and their families. Over the past ten months, UFCW members in Southern California, Seattle, Oregon, Detroit, Texas, and Toledo, Ohio have signed new contracts with Kroger without a work stoppage. Cincinnati workers deserve the same.
For more on UFCW negotiations across the country, please visit the Grocery Workers United website at www.groceryworkersunited.org.
August 29, 2007
MAKING GROCERY JOBS CAREER JOBS
Puget Sound grocery workers overwhelmingly ratify three-year contract
with grocery employers
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW)-represented grocery workers in the Puget Sound area improved grocery jobs for workers and communities when they recently ratified a fair contract with their employers. These UFCW members joined members in Southern California, Texas, Toledo, and Detroit, and New England in recently ratifying good contracts with affordable, quality health care, retirement security, and wages that pay the bills.
Puget Sound grocery workers in UFCW Locals 21, 81, and 44 overwhelmingly approved their three-year contract agreement with three national grocery chains: Safeway, Supervalu (Albertsons) and Kroger (Fred Meyer and QFC).
The new three-year contract agreement includes:
An affordable, improved health care plan, with no-cost preventative care, coverage for same-sex couples and reduced waiting period for children’s coverage, wellness incentives for employees, and lower prescription costs;
Wage increases of up to $1.30 an hour over the term of the contract;
Improvements in sick leave and scheduling practices; and
Pension plan secured with no cuts for the life of the contract.
“The terms of this contract—especially the medical benefits, give me the feeling of great relief,” said Eleanor Knight, a UFCW Local 21 member working at Issaquah’s QFC. “My son and I need good health care benefits. This new plan will make a big difference in our lives.”
“From the beginning, we set very clear goals,” said Dave Schmitz, President of UFCW Local 21. “We met those goals—and more—without taking any steps backwards. There are solid wage increases, a groundbreaking health care benefits package that means better care at lower costs for members and progress on sick leave and scheduling practices.”
Community support and UFCW solidarity was instrumental in securing a fair contract. Over the past five months of negotiations, grocery employees received an outpouring of support from grocery store customers, workers, and community members throughout Puget Sound as well as throughout the country. Tens of thousands signed a pledge saying they would stand up for grocery workers, and religious leaders and elected officials showed up at stores to bolster support for workers.
“”The community stood with these workers because it was the right thing to do,” said Steve Williamson, Director of Strategic Campaigns for UFCW Local 21. ”Standing with grocery industry workers who are struggling every day to make ends meet is critical to the future of our middle class.”
The Puget Sound campaign, representing 20,000 grocery workers in Puget Sound, is part of the Grocery Workers United unity bargaining campaign. Grocery Workers United is a national movement of over 400,000 UFCW-represented grocery workers joining with each other and with community members across the country and in Canada to improve jobs in the grocery industry–one contract at a time.
To find out more about Puget Sound and other grocery negotiations, log on to www.groceryworkersunited.org, or www.sharethesuccess.org.
For more information, please contact press@ufcw.org.
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August 3, 2007
NEW UFCW STRIKES NEW BARGAIN FOR GROCERY WORKERS
Food and Commercial Workers Union Leads Nationwide Revival of Worker Bargaining Strength in Key 21st Century Industry
Innovation, career opportunities, progressive wage scales and job security along with health care and defined benefit pensions seemed to be disappearing from union contracts. Collective bargaining, in almost every industry, frequently became a struggle to slow the downward slide of benefit reductions, two-tier wages and job elimination. In a dramatic turnaround this year, the grocery workers union—the 1.3 million member United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW)—is leading a nationwide revival of worker bargaining strength that is winning contracts with unified wage progressions with the elimination of two-tier wage systems, adequately funded health benefit plans, continued defined-benefit pension plans; and innovative programs for preventive and wellness care benefits with no co-pays, no deductibles and no out-of-pocket expenses for workers.
The recent ratification of a new contract for 60,000 UFCW members in Southern California confirmed the changing dynamic in contract negotiations for grocery workers. The Southern California supermarket industry witnessed one of the longest and most bitter strikes in 2003-04 as workers walked picket lines for four and a half months in a fight to resist employer demands to eliminate affordable health care, to impose a substandard wage and benefit structure on new workers, and to rewrite contract provisions that provided worker protections. While striking workers were able to maintain much of their wage and benefit package, the employers forced provisions to severely limit wages and benefits for new employees.
The 2007 contract, reached without a strike, represents a new bargain for workers that could shape the future for retail workers. The new contract gives all employees a new opportunity for good jobs and career opportunities in an industry that is a critical source of jobs in the new service economy, particularly young workers and women. Workers won:
the elimination of tiers for health care, pension and wages;
a wage progression giving all workers regular wage advancement;
a higher average starting pay with annual wage increases;
adequate health care funding;
shorter waiting periods for benefit coverage; and,
adequate pension funding to maintain defined retirement benefit.
In a reversal of the trend to shifting health care costs to workers, the new benefit program reduces long term costs by providing preventive benefits without cost to workers.
The advances in wages and benefits come as part of a contract that protects workers from unfair or arbitrary discipline or dismissal, and provides standards for promotion, overtime and scheduling. These contract provisions are critical to workers as an antidote to retail industry practice of firing or forcing employees from their jobs in order to lower wages. Circuit City garnered national attention when it launched an assault on its workers by summarily dismissing higher paid long term employees without just cause or any opportunity to appeal. (Washington Post, 3/29/07)
The Southern California agreement follows similar recent UFCW contract settlements in New England, Houston and Dallas, Texas, Detroit, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio. Those contracts secured solid wage increases, expanded access to quality health care, and secured the financial base of health care and retirement benefit funds. UFCW grocery workers are turning supermarket jobs into career jobs through unified bargaining actions.
Other contracts impacting tens of thousands of workers are being negotiated in Northern California, the Puget Sound area of Washington State, Eugene, Oregon and St. Louis, Missouri.
The new dynamic at work shaping the 2007 round of UFCW bargaining began with a systematic program to build unity among workers, communities, consumers and local unions—the “unity bargaining” program. In every negotiation, grocery workers from across the country are enlisted to support workers in bargaining everywhere in the country. UFCW members working at Kroger in Atlanta wore stickers in their stores to show support for workers in Texas. Workers in Arizona signed up on the web site www.groceryworkersunited.org to take action to help win contracts in California.
Mobilization for contract fights is union-wide and connects with all UFCW members. Community organizations and consumers were engaged from the beginning of negotiations to provide a solid foundation of support. Every UFCW local was prepared to provide immediate financial, staff and member support for any UFCW members forced to strike.
As UFCW International President Joe Hansen said, “Any strike, any lock out involving any UFCW local union in any area becomes a national labor dispute from the first moment of the first day of the first picket line until that dispute is resolved. We are one union, one voice.”
The revival of worker bargaining strength began almost immediately following the end the 2003-04 Southern California strike/lockout. Joe Hansen, a meatcutter from Milwaukee with a lifetime of union service from organizer to International Secretary-Treasurer, was elected International President, and began a complete restructuring of the UFCW to focus on growth for worker bargaining strength. Executive Vice President Pat O’Neill was assigned as Director of Collective Bargaining and put together a strategic, “unity bargaining” program.
“We are a new union. We are a new UFCW,” declared Hansen as he directed resources toward comprehensive organizing and bargaining in the union’s core industries of retail, meatpacking and food processing.
The focus on core industry organizing was essential to the revival of collective bargaining. Worker bargaining strength in an industry depends on organizing all workers in the industry. The decades-old labor movement-wide pattern of organizing without regard to industry has sapped worker strength in negotiations even in growth industries with rising employment. Hansen pledged a different approach. “We are organizing industry-wide to build worker power. The measure of our success as a union is in the lives of our members,” Hansen told his union.
The 2007 bargaining success also reflects a change in the retail industry. Union supermarket operations maintained or expanded market share, revenue and profits. In contrast, Wal-Mart—the anti-worker scourge of the retail industry—tripped and stumbled with a barrage of bad press and bad community relations with growing consumer, worker and political resistance to the super-sized retailer’s disregard for affordable health care, living wages, sex discrimination, the exploitation of immigrant workers and community impact.
“We are moving into a post-Wal-Mart era. Low wages, high turnover and contempt for worker rights are not the way to long term growth and profits. UFCW contracts providing for an experienced, committed workforce with decent wages, benefits and treatment are the foundation for corporate success in retail,” according to Hansen.
UFCW is positioned for a major impact on the workplace and workforce of the future. The industry with the most new openings for workers over the next decade is retail. The 2007 round of negotiations in retail food give all retail workers an alternative to the instability, insecurity and inadequate wages and benefits of retail jobs. “UFCW contracts provide what retail workers want—career potential with decent wages and benefits, job security, fair treatment and a voice. UFCW contracts are the basis for organizing the retail industry,” said UFCW Collective Bargaining Director Pat O’Neill.
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August 1, 2007
Southern California UFCW Members Ratify Contract
Community-Worker Solidarity, Regional And National Support Win The Fight For Quality, Affordable Health Care And A Living Wage For All Workers
Washington, DC—By an overwhelming majority, grocery workers in Southern California represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) ratified a fair contract agreement yesterday with the country’s largest supermarkets: Kroger, Safeway, and Supervalu.
The contract was ratified by an overwhelming margin exceeding 87%, with extremely high membership attendance at the meetings throughout Southern California. All seven United Food and Commercial Workers Local Unions recommended that grocery workers ratify the contract.
UFCW members and their union leaders in Southern California fought long and hard through six months of negotiations for this contract, and it is a major improvement over the previous one. The new four-year contract includes:
- Elimination of the unfair “two-tier” wage and benefit structure;
- Wage increases ranging between $1.65 and $6 over the life of the contract;
- All wages increases retroactive to previous contract expiration in March;
- Increased contributions to secure pension benefits;
- Significant improvements to all health care plans; and
- Necessary funding for health care guaranteed through the contract.
UFCW members owe much of what they’ve accomplished to the solidarity and strength they showed in working together to bargain for a fair contract. Seven UFCW Local Unions in Southern California all worked together in bargaining and coordinating campaign actions and strategies.
Southern California UFCW members also owe their success to the extensive support of community and religious leaders, shoppers, sister unions and UFCW members nationwide throughout the six months of negotiations in their efforts to gain improved health care coverage and fair wages.
Coordinated action with supporters and customers played a pivotal role in gaining a positive settlement. Union members, community members, religious groups, grocery workers, and supporters knocked on thousands of doors, handed out flyers, sent emails and letters of support, wrote editorials, attended rallies and marches, spoke out in churches, and signed pledge cards supporting UFCW members.
“This contract is a major step forward for grocery workers,” said Pat O’Neill, UFCW International Executive Vice President and Director of Collective Bargaining. “But it never would have happened without the solidarity of the UFCW members and their union leaders in Southern California, along with the support of the community. It just goes to show that it pays to be a member of the UFCW.”
The new contract covers approximately 65,000 workers in Southern California. Elsewhere on the West Coast, about 18,000 UFCW members in Washington and Oregon are still fighting for a fair contract with their employers. Grocery workers in Northern California will begin bargaining for a new contract later this fall.
The coordinated effort in Southern California is part of a UFCW nationwide unity bargaining program. By supporting each other regionally and nationally, as well as engaging customers and community members in their struggle, grocery workers are improving grocery industry jobs for themselves and their communities. To learn more about other bargaining campaigns, go to: www.groceryworkersunited.org.
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July 18, 2007
UFCW MEMBERS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA REACH TENTATIVE AGREEMENT WITH NATIONAL GROCERS
Community-Worker Solidarity, Regional And National Support Win The Fight For Quality, Affordable Health Care And A Living Wage For All Workers
Washington, DC—Last night, over 60,000 grocery workers in Southern California represented by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) reached a tentative agreement with the country’s largest supermarkets: Kroger, Safeway, and Supervalu.
Details of the contract will be available Monday after workers vote on whether to ratify the agreement on Sunday, July 22.
Southern California UFCW members had the support of community and religious leaders, shoppers, sister unions and UFCW members nationwide throughout the six months of negotiations in their effort to gain improved health care coverage and fair wages.
“This contract goes a long way in maintaining good jobs with health care, wages that pay the bills, and a loyal productive workforce in the grocery industry that is good for workers, communities, and businesses,” said UFCW International President Joe Hansen.
Throughout the negotiations process, UFCW members demonstrated solidarity and strength in bargaining for a fair contract. Seven UFCW locals in Southern California all worked together in bargaining and coordinating campaign actions and strategies.
Coordinated action with supporters and customers played a pivotal role in gaining a positive settlement. Union members, community members, religious groups, grocery workers, and supporters knocked on thousands of doors, handed out flyers, sent emails and letters of support, wrote editorials, attended rallies and marches, spoke out in churches, and signed pledge cards supporting UFCW members.
The coordinated effort in Southern California is part of a UFCW nationwide unity bargaining program. By supporting each other regionally and nationally, as well as engaging customers and community members in their struggle, grocery workers are improving grocery industry jobs for themselves and their communities.
To learn more about other bargaining campaigns, go to: www.groceryworkersunited.org.