Grocery Workers Are Suing to Bring Democracy to Their Union

This spring, members looking to reform the United Food and Commercial Workers filed a lawsuit against their union, the fifth largest in the country. The members hope that the case will result in changes that help democratize the UFCW.

By Lisa Xu

July 15, 2024

Source: Jacobin


Delegates from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 3000 (Washington, Oregon and Idaho) get ready to head into union's convention in Las Vegas and hand out literature in support of a slate of constitutional amendments to increase bargaining power and democracy in the union. Their shirts bear the slogan "Organizing & Bargaining & the Right to Strike & A Voice in Our Union." Image via Labor Notes



Members seeking to transform the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) have added a new weapon to their arsenal: legal action.

Grocery workers Kyong Barry (Local 3000 in Washington) and Iris Scott (Local 1459 in Massachusetts) sued the UFCW on April 19 over the undemocratic representation of members at the UFCW convention, which takes place every five years.

There are several charges, but the crux of the lawsuit is that delegates are apportioned across locals in such a way as to deny members an equal voice. A favorable ruling would enable reformers in other unions to sue on the same basis.

The UFCW is the fifth-largest union in the United States after the National Education Association (NEA), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the Teamsters. It represents 1.2 million members, who are largely in grocery, meatpacking, retail, and health care. As in most large unions, the convention is its highest governing body. There, delegates from each local elect the top officers and vote on changes to the constitution and the direction of the union every five years.
Union Democracy Law

The Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA) is the main law governing union democracy in the United States, and union members like Barry and Scott have legal standing to sue under Title I, also known as the Members’ Bill of Rights.

Their lawsuit charges the UFCW with violating the LMRDA in four ways:Using a formula that disproportionately and unequally allocates delegates across locals. In the UFCW, members from larger locals are underrepresented relative to those from smaller locals. For example, a local with one thousand members is allocated two delegates (0.20 percent), while a local with fifty-five thousand members is allocated thirty delegates (0.05 percent), a fourfold difference.
Ex officio delegates serving in preference to elected delegates. In each local, the union president and secretary-treasurer are automatically delegates, reducing the fraction of the delegation selected through elections in which rank-and-file members may run. In smaller locals with two or fewer delegates, there are no separate delegate elections.
Allowing locals not to hold delegate elections, as well as to refuse to send elected delegates to the convention. The UFCW does not prevent local officers from deciding not to hold delegate elections at all, or refusing to send delegates once they are elected, usually citing financial reasons.
Allowing locals to give inadequate notice of delegate elections. The UFCW does not ensure that locals inform members of delegate nominations and elections.

If the lawsuit succeeds, members of other unions with similar complaints might successfully sue their unions (and likely recoup the cost of their legal fees as well). SEIU, for instance, also uses ex officio selection of delegates. Unfair delegate systems in major unions have been criticized as an obstacle to change.

Notably, the UFCW does qznot have direct elections for its top officers, also known as “one member, one vote” (1M1V). Barry and Scott are not necessarily calling for 1M1V as a remedy, and the court is unlikely to impose 1M1V when it rules on the case, due to the weakness of the LMRDA. However, direct elections are an important goal for UFCW reformers, and more equal representation would make it easier to pass 1M1V as well as other reforms at a future UFCW convention.

For the UFCW, winning 1M1V would mark a return to the union’s roots. Members of the former Retail Clerks International Association, which merged with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters to form the UFCW in 1979, had the right to vote for their top officers. The Teamsters and the United Auto Workers (UAW) both have 1M1V for top officers.
Sleeping Giant

The lawsuit is funded by Essential Workers for Democracy (EWD), which hopes to build the UFCW into a more democratic and fighting union and, as EWD puts it on its website, reawaken “the sleeping union giant.” Barry is on EWD’s board, and Scott began organizing with the group shortly after it formed in 2023.

Both were elected delegates at the 2023 UFCW convention, and helped put forward a set of pro-democracy and pro-organizing resolutions, including for 1M1V, coordinated bargaining, making it easier for locals to authorize a strike and improving strike benefits, more resources for new organizing, and capping union salaries at $250,000 a year. One resolution called for a more equal allocation of delegates, the subject of the current lawsuit.

However, most delegates ended up voting against these resolutions, siding with the current leadership, which vigorously opposed them. In at least one case, supporters of the status quo prematurely cut off debate to prevent rank-and-file members in line to speak in support of 1M1V from getting to the microphone. The Constitution Committee, whose role is to vet submitted amendments, also issued recommendations in near-perfect lockstep with UFCW leadership.

Reformers view the lawsuit as a continuation of their efforts at the convention and useful for continuing to agitate the rank and file. “For me, it was important to be involved with this lawsuit because I was at the convention, and I saw our rank-and-file voices being purposely suppressed,” said Scott, who is a steward and shift leader in produce at River Valley Co-op in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

“I understand that the vast majority of my union siblings, the over one million union siblings in the UFCW, haven’t had the experience to see that. . . . Although there are many ways for us to go about creating change, this is one route we realized we could use.”

Since the convention, EWD activists have also been focused on organizing in their workplaces around their flagship issues of coordinated bargaining, strike readiness, and democratizing the union.

They are building up local committees of reform-minded members, beyond the existing base that supported the EWD resolutions at the convention, and mapping key information such as the many units and contract expiration dates in each local. This is no small task in locals with tens of thousands of members, often spread across hundreds of grocery stores, meatpacking plants, and other workplaces.

This organizing received a boost at the 2024 Labor Notes Conference in Chicago, which fifty EWD activists attended together; many were meeting each other in person for the first time. Since the conference, EWD has begun holding virtual organizing trainings as well. The lawsuit itself was announced at a press conference during the conference weekend, with a roomful of UFCW members along with UAW and Teamster reformers.

On May 24, the UFCW responded by filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the plaintiffs lack standing to pursue claims pertaining to the next convention, which will “occur years in the future” (in 2028), and that the harms alleged to them as members are “speculative.” If the lawsuit proceeds, a ruling is expected in late 2024 or early 2025.

The UFCW administration has also signaled that it is ready to retaliate against lawsuit supporters. In a notice sent to all local union presidents in May, President Marc Perrone demanded “respect” for the international union and suggested that a “third party” was undermining it, presumably a reference to EWD.
UFCW at a Crossroads

The union’s reform wing has been gaining steam.

Among the most important initiatives is coordinated bargaining among locals representing Kroger workers, led by Faye Guenther, the president of Local 3000, the union’s largest local. A major effort in 2022 pooled resources across eight West Coast UFCW locals and took on contracts covering one hundred thousand grocery workers. Coordinated bargaining is also one of EWD’s leading demands, as the UFCW has no master grocery contract and agreements are fractured across hundreds of locals.

Local 3000 has also anchored a Stop the Merger coalition of UFCW locals (and one Teamsters local) aimed at halting the megamerger of grocers Kroger and Albertsons. The coalition’s efforts led to the Federal Trade Commission filing for an injunction in February in an attempt to prevent the deal from going forward.

The proposed merger would be the largest in supermarket history and pit the UFCW against even greater consolidated corporate power across the bargaining table.

Another area in which reformers agree the union is falling short is new organizing, which is under-resourced and where the UFCW’s lackluster reputation also often precedes it. Scott pointed to workers at Trader Joe’s and Amazon not wanting to organize with the union, and said, “At a certain point we have to look in the mirror and ask why.”

“[The lawsuit] is a tool to show that you can still love your union and also fight to hold it accountable to the members,” Scott said. “You can use it to reach workers that have never heard about any of this going on within their unions, and to pull them into this movement.”

No Union Democracy, No Union Revitalization


Union democracy shouldn’t be seen as an abstract good separate from more important strategic considerations about rebuilding labor. Without democratizing labor, we can’t rebuild labor.

United Auto Workers members attend a rally on October 7, 2023, 

in Chicago, Illinois.

 (Jim Vondruska / Getty Images)

Chris Bohner 

JACOBIN

26/02/2024


Are labor unions democratic, and does it even matter? The recent transformation of the United Auto Workers (UAW), led by newly elected president Shawn Fain and the rank-and-file caucus Unite All Workers for Democracy, has provoked new debates about the governance of American unions.

For over seventy years, the UAW was under the complete control of just one party, the Administration Caucus. It wasn’t until the UAW settled a wide-ranging criminal complaint with the Department of Justice in 2020 that union members obtained the right to directly elect the top officers of their union (approved in a referendum supported by 64 percent of the membership). UAW members promptly threw out the Administration Caucus, engaged in a victorious strike against the Big Three automakers, and launched one of the most ambitious organizing campaigns in recent history.

Is it just a coincidence, or is there any link between the UAW’s democratic reforms and the more militant direction of the union? And if there is such a link, does it have any lessons for the broader labor movement? In a recent Jacobin article, I discussed some flaws in the state of contemporary union democracy, contending that the direct election of top union leaders is an important reform that could help reinvigorate the labor movement. Dave Kamper wrote a reply defending the current state of union democracy, saying that while he of course values democracy within the labor movement, “democracy is a value, not a strategy” and won’t necessarily lead to more militant unions.

There have been some significant victories for unions in recent years, but the percentage of workers who are unionized is still declining, and labor is not organizing at a rate that will reverse this trend. There are many external causes for the decline, but one internal factor is a failure of union leadership and a breakdown of democratic governance — “one member, one vote” is a worthy reform that could help address this failure.

“The Electoral College on Steroids”

In starting to answer the question of whether unions are democratic, let’s review the two predominant election models for electing top officers — positions typically vested with significant power to set a union’s direction. A handful of unions have direct elections (or “one member, one vote”), while most elect delegates to a convention at the local level through a membership vote, who then nominate and elect the top officers. The delegate system looks democratic, but the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU), two of the largest private sector unions, provide examples of how the delegate system can work in practice.

Like the International Brotherhood of Teamsters before they were taken over by the Department of Justice in 1989, the UFCW and SEIU make liberal use of ex officio delegates: elected local officers who automatically became delegates without a membership vote. This is similar to the “superdelegate” system used by the Democratic Party that was famously deployed by party insiders to blunt the momentum of Bernie Sanders’s insurgent presidential candidacy.

Kamper argues the “delegates of [the UFCW] convention were all directly elected by members in secret-ballot elections.” However, according to the UFCW Constitution, top local union officers are automatically delegates to a convention by virtue of their office “without separate nomination and election as a delegate,” even if they were elected to office up to three years before the convention.

As one UFCW member remarked, the system is “like the Electoral College system on steroids.” Indeed, the UFCW delegate system is analogous to voting for candidates to the Electoral College before knowing the Democratic or Republican nominees for president.

Because of superdelegates and other features of the UFCW constitution, the UFCW reform group Essential Workers for Democracy estimates that up to 60 percent of the delegates to the 2023 convention were officers or staff. This built-in incumbent bias is a central reason why the top leadership “elections” at the UFCW resemble a dynastic form of succession. Over the last thirty years, there have been only three UFCW International Presidents, none of whom faced competitive or contested elections.The UFCW delegate system is analogous to voting for candidates to the Electoral College before knowing the Democratic or Republican nominees for president.

The lack of leadership challenges occurred as the union lost over 200,000 members, saw a steep drop in union density in its core industry (supermarkets), and negotiated a union contract at Kroger — one of the UFCW’s largest employers — that leaves one out of five workers on food stamps and other social assistance. Kamper argues reformers aren’t doing the hard organizing work to challenge UFCW leadership, but the structural obstacles to democratic participation are a better explanation.

UFCW isn’t the only large union using a superdelegate system to control union conventions. SEIU has an upcoming convention in 2024 to replace Mary Kay Henry, the retiring president of the union. Under the SEIU constitution, not only are the top officers of locals automatically delegates to the convention (even if elected up to three years ago), but the entire slate of local officers are automatically delegates. For example, SEIU’s largest local — 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers, representing some 450,000 members — is apportioned two hundred delegates for the 2024 convention, but seventy-nine of the delegates, or 40 percent, are superdelegates.

The superdelegate system is just one undemocratic feature of union governance, but there are many other formal and practical obstacles impeding worker participation, open debate, and competitive leadership elections. Kamper doesn’t address these obstacles, but surely union members voting for superdelegates years before a convention — without any knowledge of the competing convention candidates or resolutions — aren’t meaningfully participating in a democratic process.

“Morbid Symptoms of Democracy’s Opposite”

It is true that “democracy can and does have a different look in different unions,” and some delegate systems can be substantively democratic. One example is the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), while Kamper offers the National Education Association’s (NEA) annual Representative Assembly (RA). Still, he provides no data on how many NEA delegate elections are contested or the degree of member participation — all critical indicators of a robust democratic culture. Incidentally, Becky Pringle won the top office at the last RA with 93 percent of the delegate vote.

Is it a “disservice” to the labor movement, as Kamper warns, to ask the “question of how leaders are chosen”? Kamper, who has written insightfully on labor, didn’t think so when promoting Sara Nelson (the president of the Association of Flight Attendants) as the next president of the AFL-CIO. Arguing that Nelson’s election would be an “enormous boon” to “building a more democratic, militant, progressive US labor movement,” Kamper criticized the fact that “the overwhelming majority of the people . . . will have no effective say in how delegates are selected.”

Although the AFL-CIO president has very limited powers, the leaders of national unions have considerable constitutional muscle to drive the strategic direction of a union. Top officers typically control the finances of the national union, set the strategic direction of organizing and contract fights, establish and limit local jurisdictions, and impose trusteeships on rebellious locals. In the case of the UFCW, a small committee led by the international president can prohibit local unions from voting on contracts, deny strike benefits for unsanctioned strikes, and override strike votes.

Given the powers of top officers, the question of how leaders are chosen is essential. Jonah Furman’s Jacobin article “How Democratic Are American Unions?” suggested that one metric to measure whether unions are democratic is to look at union leadership: “Do incumbents ever lose their positions to a challenger? Are there (meaningful) challengers? Obviously, leadership challenges aren’t the source of ‘democracy,’ but the lack of such challenges . . . could very well be morbid symptoms of democracy’s opposite.”

In my article, I presented data on the election of top officers at the largest unions. Four of the six large unions with “one member, one vote” had competitive or contested elections for the top spot at the last convention. In contrast, for the fourteen unions without direct elections representing 10.6 million members, only three had competitive elections at the previous convention, and not one incumbent lost.

Kamper doesn’t address this data because he argues there is no strategic value to democracy. However, one of the primary arguments for democracy is that contested leadership elections with open debate lead to better long-term decision making than autocratic systems. That’s why “one member, one vote” is valuable as a reform — it isn’t a “silver bullet,” but it is an important pressure valve that members can use when local democracy is not working effectively.Of course, union democracy doesn’t ‘automatically’ lead to more militant or effective unions, but it is a crucial ingredient.

In this regard, Kamper ignores the importance of “one member, one vote” in revitalizing the UAW and, conversely, the strong link between delegate systems and the rampant corruption that necessitated the federal takeover of several large unions. Instead, Kamper focuses on the Teamsters, pointing out that direct elections did not “automatically” lead to a militant union under James Hoffa Jr, the former general president.

This is true, but every presidential election at the Teamsters since 1991 was competitive, a rarity in many delegate systems. Meaningful elections are important organizing vehicles for members to openly debate union strategy, helping sustain the relevance of reform movements like Teamsters for a Democratic Union.

When Hoffa Jr imposed the UPS contract in 2018 against a majority of workers voting no, “one member, one vote” gave Teamster members a direct avenue to throw out his successor and elect new leadership. It is highly doubtful that this would have happened under a less responsive delegate system.

Oligarchy vs. Democracy in the Labor Movement

Kamper doesn’t look very deeply into the actual practice of democracy in today’s unions because, surprisingly, as much as he values union democracy abstractly, he sees little strategic value in democracy as a path to labor’s revitalization. This is not an uncommon view, as some labor theorists have long argued that oligarchy and elite rule are necessary for labor unions to effectively fight the vastly disproportionate power of capitalists.

But this view may be surprising to contemporary reform movements seeking to change their unions or the many rank-and-file activists profiled in Herman Benson’s classic book on union democracy: Rebels, Reformers, and Racketeers: How Insurgents Transformed the Labor Movement. As Benson documents, union reformers fought for democracy at great personal cost, frequently subject to retaliation by employers and union leaders and, in some cases, violence and murder. These members weren’t motivated by some abstract moral value of democracy. They saw democracy as a strategy to transform unions that were failing to effectively represent workers in their fight against employers.

Of course, union democracy doesn’t “automatically” lead to more militant or effective unions, but it is a crucial ingredient. Kamper claims there hasn’t been a “systematic effort to study” the relationship, but he overlooks some essential academic scholarship. Judith Stepan-Norris and Maurice Zeitlin’s book Left Out: Reds and America’s Industrial Unions exhaustively probes the relationship between union democracy and mass organizing in the 1930s and 1940s by the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO).

Citing a 1948 study of union democracy, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin point out that most unions at the time — especially the more conservative American Federation of Labor (AFL) unions — were “not even nominally democratic.” But when they looked more closely at the CIO unions (many of whom had the opportunity to write their constitutions from scratch), Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin found that “seven out of ten CIO international unions, as of that same year [1948], were democratic: either highly (29 percent) or moderately (40 percent); only three out of ten (31 percent) were ruled by an autocrat.”

Moreover, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin “found that the contracts won by the locals of stable highly democratic international unions were systematically more likely to be prolabor on a set of critical provisions (management prerogatives, the right to strike, and the grievance procedure) than those won by locals of stable moderately democratic and stable oligarchical internationals.” The findings of Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin are consistent with a large body of theory that argues democracy is a more effective governance system than autocratic forms of organization.

The labor movement has rightly condemned the undemocratic features of our political system, calling for the elimination of the filibuster and the expansion of voting rights to create a government more responsive to the working class. But why shouldn’t the same standards apply to union members seeking to participate in the governance of their union?

“One member, one vote” is no silver bullet, but as Mike Parker and Martha Gruelle argued in their classic book Democracy Is Power, “the demand for direct elections can be an important tool in a movement for reform, although not a substitute for a movement.”

CONTRIBUTORS
Chris Bohner is a union researcher and activist.

Wal-Mart Drives Down Wages

And here is another good reason to boycott Wal-Mart as if one was needed. They drive down wages. In Canada. In competition with our large big box discount grocery chains. Its not just lower costs and lower prices folks, its driven by lower wages, and NO benefits.

But Wal-Mart is not the only villian in this story, they have pals in the bosses, in this case Loblaws and its big box retail outlet Superstore, and their union, UFCW.

Canada has too many grocery stores and the situation will only get worse as discounter Wal-Mart Canada Corp. and other non-union global retailers take a bigger bite of the market, Loblaw Cos. Ltd. chairman Galen Weston warns.

To take on the growing competition, Loblaw, the country's largest grocer, is racing to overhaul its systems. It is adding more general merchandise, lowering prices and rolling out more discount superstores. And the unionized company is in contract talks in a bid to gain pay concessions and level the playing field with non-unionized Wal-Mart. Loblaw profit slips on snags in overhaul

Loblaw operates at a competitive disadvantage to Wal-Mart in terms of labour costs, as the majority of Loblaw stores are unionized. The retailer has successfully negotiated to pay employees at its 80 superstores lower wages than at its traditional stores. Loblaw girds for battle

Canada's biggest supermarket chain says it wants to open more mid-sized conventional grocery stores in downtown Toronto to serve the booming condominium market. But Loblaw Cos. Ltd. said it must first strike more deals with its unions, similar to the ones it got for its Ontario superstores, to remain competitive with non-union rivals. Loblaw eyeing hungry condo dwellers

They already gained concessions from their union, the sell out UFCW. Last round of bargaining UFCW whined about Wal-Mart, whom they have tried to unionize, while accepting the Loblaw contract without taking it to the rank and file to vote on. The threat of Wal-Mart is enough to drive UFCW into concessions, not that it needs to be pushed hard.

Since the late eighties UFCW has accepted concession bargaining by Safeways, and others and as typical of this business union, despite membership opposition. In Alberta in the 1990's concession bargaining by UFCW with Safeways inspired Ralph Klein to attack public sector wages using UFCW's two tiered wage concession and wage roll back of 5% to Safeway's as an excuse, to roll back public sector wages by 5%.

While a union is better than no union, when it comes to UFCW all they care about is the union dues, as they have accepted increased part time two tiered wages, including lower wages for new employees. Why. Well they still get the union dues whether the workers are full time or part time. They are after all in the 'business' of being a union.

The imposition of bureaucratic rule has always required bureaucratic methods, including outright dishonesty. A recent example of this process is found in the attempt by leaders of the American Flintglass Workers Union, a small, relatively democratic union, to take that union into the United Food & Commercial Workers, one of the nation's most grotesquely bureaucratic unions. Merger might have made sense for this tiny union, but given the reality of the UFCW, it was clear the "Flints," as they call themselves, would lose some of their current democracy; e.g. the election of the union's ten national reps. To get it by, the pro-merger leaders called a special convention without making the terms of the merger available until the delegates arrived. Sensibly, the delegates voted the merger down by over three to one. In this case democracy prevailed over bureaucratic method.

The battle for bureaucratic unionism was won by the 1950s and the unions that emerged looked little like those that exploded on the scene in the mid-1930s. Reviewing in horror the transformation of so many unions, Sidney Lens wrote at the time (in The Crisis of American Labor) about the rise of full-time, appointed "reps" whose swelling numbers bolstered the domination of union politics by the top officials. There had always been authoritarian leaders, but for the newer industrial unions at least all of the armies of appointees were something new. This rising tide of bureaucratic business unionism brought with it the receding fortunes of the unions themselves. Four decades later, many of labor's friends and enemies alike assume that massive bureaucracy and top-down control are the natural state of the unions, possibly "the best" state.

Kim Moody Is Bureaucracy "Best" For Unions?

Also See:

Labor Notes Bookshelf - An Injury to All"Kim Moody's An Injury to All exhaustively documents the devastating effects of management's anti-union drive of the last fifteen years.

An Injury to All: The Decline of American Unionism. - book reviews

Confessions of an orthodox militant - and contentions - response to the review of author's 'Injury to All'; includes reply of reviewer Dana Frank

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
unions, Loblaws, Weston, UFCW, Wal-Mart, Canada, labour, Real-Canadian-Superstores, Superstore, union, food, supermarkets, Safeway

Cargill beef-processing plant in High River, Alta. narrowly avoids strike action

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Days before planned strike at High River, Alta., facility,

 union agrees to new contract

Jade Markus · CBC News · Posted: Dec 04, 2021 

The Cargill beef-processing plant in High River, Alta., seen in 2020 after it reopened following a two-week shutdown because of a COVID-19 outbreak affecting hundreds of employees. On Saturday, workers accepted a new contract offer that included new rights for sick employees.  (Dan McGarvey/CBC)

Employees at Cargill's beef-processing plant in High River, Alta., have voted in favour of a new labour contract, narrowly avoiding strike action and a possible lockout.

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 (UFCW), which represents workers at the plant, said Saturday that workers chose to accept the new contract offer, with 71 per cent voting in favour.

In a statement, UFCW said it was not an easy decision for staff at the plant, and called the contract vote a "bittersweet victory." 

Workers had raised safety concerns after a COVID-19 outbreak at the plant in 2020 affected more than 900 people. The outbreak, which forced Cargill to temporarily close the plant — one of Canada's largest — is linked to three deaths.

The union says the new contract includes procedures to ensure worker health and safety, benefits, and new rights for sick employees. 

After the two sides held talks on Tuesday, UFCW's bargaining committee agreed to recommend the new offer to its members, Cargill spokesperson Daniel Sullivan said. Workers voted between Thursday and Saturday.

The union released parts of the proposed offer to CBC earlier in the week. The contract included $4,200 in retroactive pay for many Cargill union members; signing, holiday and COVID-19 bonuses; and a $5 wage increase.

Workers prepare beef to be packaged at the Cargill facility near High River, Alta. The plant is the site of what became the largest COVID-19 outbreak in North America last year. (Name withheld)

UFCW had said the plant's roughly 2,000 workers would strike Monday unless an agreement was reached.

The union also they brought in tents, floodlights and heaters for the possible strike, while nearby fields were levelled to provide parking.

• What Cargill workers want 
  • Cargill workers to vote on new deal ahead of strike at one of Canada's largest beef-processing plants

Cargill had also planned to lock out all UFCW union staff as of 12:01 a.m. Monday, according to a statement from the company's vice-president of labour relations, Tanya Teeter, which was obtained and made public by the union.

• Cargill issues lockout notice to staff at one of Canada's largest beef-processing plants

• Cargill workers to vote on new deal ahead of strike at one of Canada's largest beef-processing plants

"We are pleased to have reached an agreement that is comprehensive, fair, and reflective of their commitment to excellence at Cargill and the critical role they play in feeding families across Canada," Jarrod Gillig, the company's president of business operations and supply chain for North America protein, wrote in a statement to CBC Saturday.  

"As an organization that leads with our value to put people first, we truly believe this ratification is in the best interests of our employees and we are eager to move forward to build a stronger future – together."

Reforms still needed: Union

"We also look forward to the citizens of Alberta joining with us in calling for reforms and restructuring in the meatpacking industry," UFCW President Thomas Hesse wrote in a statement Saturday. 

"Workers have been ripped off. Ranchers have been ripped off. And we've all been ripped off at the supermarket counter. Government failed to protect these workers, as well as failing to protect Alberta ranchers and consumers. Change must occur." 

The Cargill plant processes up to 4,500 head of cattle per day, accounting for about one-third of Canada's beef.

With files from Tony Seskus, Joel Dryden and Reuters

Strike action avoided at Cargill beef plant in High River, Alta.


Adam Lachacz
CTVNewsEdmonton.ca 

Digital Producer
Published Dec. 4, 2021 

Cargill workers approved a new contract with 71 per cent support, avoiding a strike or lockout.

After two days of voting, employees at the beef-processing plant in High River, Alta., embraced the new labour contract.

In a statement, the United Food and Commerical Workers (UFCW) Local 401, representing workers at the plant, said on Saturday that it was a "bittersweet victory."

The site, employing about 2,000 people, experienced a COVID-19 outbreak last year that affected more than 900 people and forced Cargill to close the plant temporarily. Three deaths have been linked to the outbreak, including two workers and one family member.

Workers will receive $4,200 in retroactive pay, a $1,000 signing bonus, a 21 per cent wage increase over the life of the contract, and improved health benefits. The company also agreed to provisions to facilitate a new culture of health, safety, dignity, and respect in the workplace.

"Our employees in High River are important to Cargill's work to nourish the world in a safe, responsible and sustainable way," said Jarrod Gillig, Cargill North America's business operations and supply chain president, in a statement to CTV News.

"We are pleased to have reached an agreement that is comprehensive, fair, and reflective of their commitment to excellence at Cargill and the critical role they play in feeding families across Canada."
STRIKE AVERTED

According to UFCW Local 401, the union and workers were ready for a potential strike, erecting tents in front of the plant, installing floodlights and propane heaters, levelling nearby fields to act as parking lots, and finalizing a picketing payroll system.

UFCW Local 401 president Thomas Hesse previously told CTV News that the deal was "fair" but would support workers on the picket line if they decided to reject the offer.

"Tomorrow, work will begin to enforce and apply the new provisions of the Cargill union contract," Hesse said in a statement Saturday. "Local 401 congratulates and thanks Cargill union members and our Cargill Bargaining Committee."

Hesse added that the past few months were trying for many employees at the plant.

MORE WORK TO DO

While the decision was not an easy one and a cause for celebration, UFCW Local 401 says there is further work.

The union says workers at the JBS Plant in Brooks, Alta., observed the Cargill proceedings as they head into bargaining for a new contract next year. Additionally, the UFCW Local 401 says it plans to continue pushing for meatpacking industry reforms and restructuring.

As prices for meat continue to soar at the grocery store, Hesse said more needs to be done to better support workers and ranchers.

"Workers have been ripped off. Ranchers have been ripped off. And we've all been ripped off at the supermarket counter," he said. "Government failed to protect these workers, as well as failing to protect Alberta ranchers and consumers. Change must occur."

With files from CTV News Calgary's Michael Franklin

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Union Democracy Is a Value, Not a Strategy

By Dave Kamper

February 1, 2024

Source: Jacobin


Democracy is a central value of every trade union worth the name. But we shouldn’t assume that a more democratic union means a more militant union.

Chris Bohner’s recent essay in these pages, “Direct Elections for Labor Leaders Make for More Militant Unions,” lays out an argument that at one level is so uncontroversial that it should be a platitude — unions should be democratic. No one who believes in organized labor in the United States (or anywhere in the world) can disagree with the sentiment. Nevertheless, Bohner is right to say it, because even seemingly obvious truths bear repeating.

However, Bohner goes much further and commits an error common to union reformers — conflating the morally good with the inherently strategic. A “more democratic union,” Bohner contends, “is a more militant union.” The path to a stronger, better union is through democracy.

Would that it were so. Building more effective unions requires commitment, patience, planning, and considerable skill, and cannot be achieved by changing a constitution. We are doing a disservice to those who want to build a better labor movement if we reduce the scope and scale of our challenges to the question of how leaders are chosen.
Democracy and Militancy

Let me back up, though, and begin by questioning one of Bohner’s underlying assumptions, that “‘one member, one vote’ is a right denied to most union members.” This simply isn’t true.

It is true that if by one member, one vote, you only mean direct election of an international union’s top leaders, most unions are not structured that way. But that’s the only way that Bohner’s assertion is true.

For example, Bohner criticizes the delegates of the convention of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) for not backing what he calls “commonsense resolutions” to make it easier for the union to strike, increase strike pay, and direct resources to organizing. He asserts that if “the general membership of the UFCW had direct elections, these resolutions would have likely received widespread support.” This is because, as he puts it, union conventions that elect leaders by the delegate system “entrench incumbents who can deploy the union’s vast legal, financial, political, and organizational resources to maintain power and stifle reform challenges.”

But the general membership of the UFCW does have direct elections. The delegates of that convention were all directly elected by members in secret-ballot elections. The UFCW constitution lays out the process in excruciating detail, one that guarantees members the right to vote.

Why is a convention delegate elected by one-member-one-vote a shill for incumbents, but an international union president elected by one-member-one-vote a liberatory figure who will change the union in fundamental ways?

Bohner here falls prey to another common error made by union reformers — treating union decisions they don’t agree with as self-evident proof of some kind of corruption.

Unions are political entities. Reasonable people can disagree on what the best path forward is for a union. To stick with UFCW: it’s entirely possible that UFCW convention delegates might have sad memories of the 2003–04 California grocery strike, where some seventy thousand UFCW members were out for 140 days, the union’s assets were cut in half, and the final deal was a bitter pill that few believe justified the walkout. Remembering that experience might well make a delegate reluctant to increase strike pay because of the risk that a long strike would drain the union’s coffers.

I’m not saying those convention delegates were right; I’m not saying they were wrong. I’m saying that their decision can be explained without resorting to allegations of corruption.

And, yes, it is likely true that, if the current leadership of UFCW opposed the reformers’ suggested changes, they might have tried to persuade convention delegates. That’s called politics, not corruption. Leaders get to try to persuade people to support their policies. That’s what leaders are supposed to do.

While Bohner reluctantly acknowledges that union democracy goes beyond direct election of international officers, that’s clearly the part he considers the most important. If so, he seems to me to be doing a disservice to, say, the National Education Association’s (NEA) annual Representative Assembly (RA), arguably the world’s largest parliamentary gathering, which some years can see close to ten thousand delegates, directly elected by members across the country. Democracy can and does have a different look in different unions.

However, even if we grant Bohner’s contention that union democracy equals one member, one vote, for the top leadership of the union, we shouldn’t assume that such a reform will automatically lead to a more militant, more organizing-minded, or more successful union.

Bohner (rightly) praises the Teamsters’ successful UPS contract campaign, a militant, strategic, well-executed plan that won a lot of good things for the members. But Bohner can’t (and doesn’t try to) explain why Teamsters presidents directly elected by the members since 1991 didn’t produce what he considers a revitalized and militant union, but the direct election of 2021 did.

Bohner has produced very provocative work on union finances, arguing that unions are hoarding assets at the expense of organizing and militancy. His argument is that more union democracy would change that trajectory. I can understand why people might want to believe it, but saying it doesn’t make it so.

The only systematic effort to study the relationship between union democracy and union organizing doesn’t support that point of view. In the mid-2000s, Andrew W. Martin looked closely at union financial data and came to the conclusion that the greater the influence union staff have on a union’s actions, and the less control local unions have over the operations of their locals, the more likely that union will engage in new organizing. Martin’s data is based on LM-2 reports to the Department of Labor, which is not an ideal source, but it is the same source that Bohner uses for his work on union finances.

As to the other half of Bohner’s argument, that directly elected union leaders will also be more militant, there isn’t any robust evidence to back it up. If you squint at the year 2023, it does kind of look like unions with directly elected leaders were more militant, but there are any number of years in recent memory where the most militant union was (say) the Communications Workers of America (CWA), or the NEA, or Service Employees International Union (SEIU), none of which directly elect their top leaders.
The Hard Work of Reform

What does seem to be true is that unions that become more focused on organizing and become more militant have gone through some kind of internal shift in power. But that shift in power isn’t always tied to changes in constitutional arrangements. If you’d asked folks before the recent United Auto Workers (UAW) strike what the most inspiring recent story of union reform and militancy was, many would have said the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). In 2010, a CTU reform caucus won power and took the union in a much more aggressive direction, launching a series of powerful strikes and even getting a former CTU staffer elected mayor. The CTU reform story is inspiring and powerful; it does not feature notable constitutional changes.

The 2018 Red for Ed strike in West Virginia and elsewhere had a different path, but also one without a union-democracy-equals-union-militancy storyline. In West Virginia in particular, member-organizers bypassed official union structures and put together a statewide strike with little reference to the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) or NEA leadership in the state.

You see this again and again if you look at how unions reinvent themselves. That conflict is rarely centered on the union’s formal structures. What it always requires, though, is considerable amounts of hard work.

If you want to reform your union, reform your union. Have one-on-one conversations to identify organizing issues and figure out what it will take to move members in the direction you want to go. Find and support better leaders, at every level of the organization. Develop strategies to win based on the circumstances of your union and the employers against whom you struggle. Build energy for those strategies through even more one-on-one conversations, leadership identification, and action. Execute your strategies, and win.

If you want unions that do more organizing, that are more militant, you’re going to have to build it, carefully and consciously. No silver bullets. Just organizing.

MICHIGAN

What new union contracts mean for Meijer employees


by: Madalyn Buursma
Updated: Feb 23, 2024 

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Raises and more paid time off are coming for Meijer employees after the union voted to ratify new contracts.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 951 ratified the contracts late Thursday night, the union says. The UFCW 951 represents more than 25,000 Meijer workers.

The ratification of the contracts came shortly after the repeal of Michigan’s right-to-work law took effect. Prior to the repeal, employees could not be obligated to join or pay for a union.

Michigan’s right-to-work repeal takes effect

Under the new union contracts, new Meijer hires in Michigan must either join the UFCW 951 or pay a service fee. Non-union members who are already employed by Meijer have until June 15 to either become a member, pay the fee or quit, the union says.

There aren’t many employees who aren’t already part of the union, John Cakmakci, president of UFCW Local 951, told News 8.

“We’re proud of that,” he said.

He expects the new requirement will make the union stronger.

The three separate contracts cover retail, distribution center/transportation and retail facilities maintenance workers. They include immediate raises of up to $1.50 an hour, plus more paid time off for those who were hired after Oct. 23, 2005.

There will also be a 25% increase in Meijer’s 401(k) match, employees will be eligible for healthcare benefits after 30 days instead of 60 days, and there will be a new paid family care leave for employees to take paid time off to take care of a family member with a serious illness.

Employees will also be guaranteed a raise for every 700 hours they work, down from the 1,000 hours previously required.

A post-pandemic workforce: How COVID empowered workers

“There were significant wage increases for our members in the distribution center as well as in the retail, premium improvements and paid time off. And some working language improvements as well,” Cakmakci told News 8.

The new contracts also give employees more opportunities to get a full-time position, along with increased shift, job classification and building premiums.

“We’re excited to have reached an agreement that includes significant investments in our team and demonstrates how much we value and care about our team members,” Ken Barton, the vice president of labor relations for Meijer, said in a statement. “This agreement also positions Meijer to continue providing great services to the communities we support.”

Cakmakci said the bargaining process took about four and a half months. While he said the union has a good relationship with Meijer, having three contracts makes the process “fairly complicated.”

Union workers ratify new Meijer contracts with wage increases, more time off

Abby Poirier 

-

February 23, 2024

Meijer Inc. store in Grand Haven. Credit: Mark Sanchez

Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 951 voted this week to ratify new contracts with Meijer that contain improvements to wages, paid time off, 401(k), health care and pay for more than 25,000 Meijer employees. 

The three separate, four-year contracts approved this week are effective Feb. 25. The contracts cover employees working in retail, distribution centers and transportation and retail facility maintenance and offer immediate wage increases of up to $1.50 per hour. 

Other contract improvements include: 

• • More paid time off for employees hired after Oct. 23, 2005;
  • A 25% increase in the company’s 401(k) match;
  • A shortened waiting period for health care benefits eligibility for full-time employees, from 60 days to 30 days; 
  • New paid family care leave, which provides paid time off for employees to care for family members with a serious illness;
  • More opportunities for employees to obtain full-time positions;
  • Guaranteed wage increases for every 700 hours worked in retail units as opposed to a prior 1,000 hours; and
  • Increased premiums for various shifts, job classifications and locations.

John Cakmakci, UFCW Local 951. Credit: Courtesy photo

“Not only are our members receiving significant wage increases, but the length of time it takes them to get to the top rate has been reduced due to the closing of gaps in the wage scale,” UFCW Local 951 President John Cakmakci said in a statement. “I am proud of the members who served on the bargaining committee and worked together to achieve contract gains that improve the lives of their fellow members.”

Cakmakci characterized the new contract as a win for workers represented by UFCW 951, the largest private sector union in the state. 

“We’re excited to have reached an agreement that includes significant investments in our team and demonstrates how much we value and care about our team members,” Ken Barton, vice president of labor relations at Meijer, said in a statement. “This agreement also positions Meijer to continue providing great services to the communities we support.”

The union began negotiations with Meijer months ago. Cakmakci noted at the time that improvements in paid time off and more affordable medical care were among the union’s top priorities in contract negotiations with the supercenter retailer, the first after the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic subsided. 

The previous contract, which was ratified in 2020, expired this month. 

“With everything that people have gone through in the last three years with COVID and everything, I think our members felt like they were forgotten,” Cakmakci said in a November report. 

Cakmakci said at the time that Meijer has historically set a standard for negotiations with other retail employers.

“It’s been a long process, but I’m very excited for this new contract,” said Steve Speare, who works at Meijer distribution center 882 in Monroe County and served on the bargaining committee for UFCW 951. “Everything we did is about getting what you work for, making a living, and I was comfortable with how everything turned out.” 

The new contract also comes during a period of changing Michigan laws concerning union membership. 

Michigan’s right-to-work law ended Feb. 13, making it the first state in 58 years to repeal such a law. Right to work had allowed workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement to opt out of joining the union. 

To reflect this repeal, the new UFCW 951 contacts with Meijer will require all new hires to join the union or pay a service fee as a condition of their employment with Meijer. Existing Meijer workers who have opted not to join the union will have until June 15 to become a union member, pay the service fee or leave the company, according to a statement.

Cakmakci sees the right-to-work repeal as a victory, noting the “detrimental impact right-to-work has had on our state.”

“Right-to-work laws are about increasing the power of corporations while restricting the power of workers to join together in unions, rather than worker freedom or job creation,” he said. “Unions are one of the few organized groups that have the capacity to successfully advocate for the economic interests of working people, so the ability for workers to be in a union must be protected.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated from its original version to include comment from Meijer.

Google thanks grocery workers with new Doodle
By Wade Sheridan

Google is recognizing grocery workers with a new Doodle. Image courtesy of Google

April 13 (UPI) -- Google is honoring grocery workers during the COVID-19 pandemic with a new Doodle.

Google's homepage features the letter "G" in the company's logo sending a heart to a grocery store worker who is represented by the letter "e."

The grocery store worker, who is wearing all green, is standing next to stands of fruits and vegetables along with a cash register.

The company says that as the pandemic continues, Doodles will pay homage to those who are battling the virus.

"As COVID-19 continues to impact communities around the world, people are coming together to help one another now more than ever. We're launching A Doodle series to recognize and honor many of those on the front lines," Google said.

Recent Doodles have given thanks to farmworkers and farmers and custodial and sanitation workers.

 Allison WilliamsGoogle honors farmworkers and farmers with new Doodle

Google recognizes custodial and sanitation workers with new Doodle

Grocery Workers Keep Dying From Coronavirus:
 ‘We Don't Have a Choice’
Dozens of grocery workers nationwide have died from coronavirus, and thousands more are out of work because they're sick or have been exposed.

By Paul Blest Apr 13 2020 VICE NEWS USA 

Cover: Volunteers at Pantry 279 distribute food to area residents experiencing food insecurity during the COVID-19 Coronavirus emergency. (Photo by Jeremy Hogan / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

Dozens of grocery workers nationwide have died from coronavirus, and more than 3,000 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union are currently out of work due to illness or exposure to COVID-19, the union said in a press call on Monday.

UFCW president Marc Perrone said that 30 members of the UFCW, which represents more than 900,000 grocery workers as part of its membership of 1.3 million, had died due to complications from coronavirus. But according to a Washington Post analysis published Sunday, at least 41 grocery workers nationwide have died due to complications from the coronavirus and more than 1,500 UFCW members have tested positive for coronavirus.

“I work in one of the hardest hit areas, and while I maintain my composure at work, the fear we feel is absolutely real,” said Gregg Finch, a UFCW member and Stop and Shop worker in New York, the global epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.. “We don’t have a choice, we have to work. We also know that we are needed. The shop is essential for New Yorkers going through the struggle.”

A recent survey conducted by the UFCW found that 96% of 5,000 members who responded are concerned about being exposed to coronavirus, Perrone said on the call Monday. In recent weeks, workers at companies such as Amazon, Shipt, and Instacart have staged walkouts in order to demand management to implement stronger safety measures and paid leave for sick employees.

Because of the overwhelming concern from members, the UFCW is rolling out a “Shop Smart” ad campaign in an attempt to persuade social distancing compliance from customers. The union will soon roll out print and video ads on a “nationwide basis,” Perrone said, “to get customers to think about [safe shopping] in a more positive way.”

Jane St. Louis, a Safeway worker in Maryland, said that three of her coworkers are out due to illness, although they haven’t been tested, and that workers are expected to stay home for two weeks if they have a fever. “Everyone’s going by that even though they aren’t getting paid,” she said.

Grocery workers from around the country expressed their fears of contracting the virus, which they said have been compounded by poor social distancing and unhygienic behavior from customers, such as tossing used gloves in shopping carts or on the floor.

“We do need to shop differently and smarter than ever before,” Finch said.

“It is clear that unless something changes quickly, more and more of these workers, both union and non-union, will become exposed and die,” Perrone said. Perrone also noted that the UFCW sent a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week urging the federal government to provide personal protective equipment to food workers “before food supply is threatened and workers die needlessly.”

He added that no formal plans have been made for walkouts at grocery stores yet, as the union has seen “good faith efforts” from employers. But he didn’t rule out more aggressive action in the future if conditions get worse.

“The more people get frustrated, if this virus doesn’t die down, we could see some of that at some point,” Perrone said. “But not because anybody wants it to happen and certainly not because these workers want it to happen. They’re just as concerned about consumers as themselves.”

This article originally appeared on VICE USA