UFCW boycotts Macy's

Just what a retailer needs during a recession:

A labor dispute between a union and one of the major stores at Tacoma Mall is heating up. Last week, members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 367 voted to approve a strike against Macy’s. The two sides have been negotiating since January. Local 367 represents about 240 workers at Macy’s, most in the store at Tacoma Mall, and about 15 in the furniture gallery on the other side of Interstate 5.


[snip]


They are awaiting permission from the international union headquarters before going out on strike. This could include calling upon the public to boycott Macy’s. Local members would prefer not to do so, he noted.

Stay tuned.

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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

For more news and views on today’s unions, go to LaborUnionReport.com.

SEIU's New Burger Queen? Internal Documents Expose Plan to Unionize Fast-Food Industry

If you'd like to see how a union plans to exploit and target workers if the hallucinogencially-named Employee Free Choice Act (aka "card-check") is passed, read this post.

Last weekend, we reported on what appeared to be a new union battle that the SEIU was going to wage by invading the UFCW's turf and attempting to unionize grocery workers.  The foundation of this was an interview new SEIU boss Mary Kay Henry gave to a reporter.  On Tuesday, the SEIU was forced to issue a press release reassuring the UFCW it had no plans on invading (also known as raiding) the food sector.

SEIU fully recognizes the food sector as a core industry of sister union United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents more than a million supermarket workers.

Well, it turns out that the SEIU's "correction" (see above) may not be entirely accurate.

Internal SEIU documents have exposed a December 2009 plan hatched to unionize the nation's fast food workers.  The SEIU plan details how the purple behemoth plans on targeting fast-food chains in Los Angeles first, the using L.A. and an "east coast" city as a spring board into other cities.

The SEIU's plan is based on a labor landscape that is post Employee Free Choice Act, but its strategies demonstrate how the SEIU plans to use EFCA to unionize an almost-entirely union-free industry.  While there is much to comment on about the SEIU plan and how a union targets workers within an industry (see highlighted text), we're just going to show you the plan itself.

In its plan, the SEIU states:

Our initial probing in this industry has taken place in the Los Angeles metro area.  Los Angeles County has over 60,000 fast food workers in just the top ten chains.  When we mapped out the restaurants of the major chains, we saw that they encompass large groupings of low income tracts.  While just over 20,000 workers are employed in the top 10 chains in Fast Food in LA, we have broke [sic] down 75% of the geography into 4 Clusters.  This encompasses just over 15,000 of the 20,000 workers.

The SEIU's One-year goal:

Organize 15,000 food service workers in LA County and thousands of additional workers in an east coast market within the first 6 months, and begin raising the standards for these workers.

The SEIU lays out its strategy, as follow:

• Initiate a focused experiment in one or two metro areas to test the organizing theory and bring resources to bear on a limited geographical target.
• Choose metro areas with a favorable local political environment and workforce composition (Los Angeles and an east coast market)
• Target 7-10 of the largest chains to keep bargaining manageable and map out geographic clusters where field work can be concentrated.
• Build broad-based support for targeted workers via extensive community outreach and organizing and political work with prominent local elected officials
• While staying focused on the 7-120 chains, bring workers together across companies within geographic clusters to build a sense of movement and solidarity.
• Use a living wage as a vehicle to excite, build momentum, build worker lists/ID potential leaders and potentially support collective bargaining.  We believe we will have enough traction with an ordinance to use as a legitimate tool for organizing and potentially as legislation to raise standards.
• Move fast and furious with an army of 200-300 Staff/MOs/VOs/other volunteer organizers and the necessary number of leads to:
• Petition for living wage
• ID leaders 
• Bring workers together within geographies
• Sign authorization cards
• File on dozens of restaurants per week 

While the SEIU's plan was prepared during the reign of Andy Stern and presented to the SEIU's Executive Board, there is no indication to believe that this plan has changed as Mary Kay Henry has committed $4 million to organizing and was part of the Executive Board at the time of this proposal.

You can read the rest of the SEIU plan here (captured just before it was mysteriously 'scrubbed')...

h/t: SternBurgerWithFries.

__________________ 

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

For more news and views on today’s unions, go to LaborUnionReport.com.

 

Told Ya So...SEIU's New President Walks Back Statement on Unionizing Grocery Workers

Either Mary Kay Henry, the new boss of the Union or Purple People Eaters misspoke, or she was taken out of context.  In either case, the SEIU had to issue a press release on Monday, walking back from Queen Mary's Saturday reported statement.

On Saturday, Mary Kay Henry had a conference call with reporters.  Afterward, BusinessWeek reported:

Mary Kay Henry, elected today as president of the Service Employees International Union, pledged to spend $4 million organizing employees in businesses such as banks and supermarkets.

On this, we noted:

Without clarification, it is difficult to know the context in which Henry referenced unionizing supermarkets. If she is intent on unionizing supermarkets through the SEIU, she is clearly stepping on the UFCW's turf.

Monday's press release emphatically denied that the SEIU would be starting a turf war with the UFCW:

SEIU plans to engage in conversations with sister unions throughout the labor movement to discuss our shared interests. However, despite a recent media report, SEIU has no intention of organizing grocery workers. SEIU fully recognizes the food sector as a core industry of sister union United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents more than a million supermarket workers.

We would have loved to have heard the angry telephone call Joe Hansen (UFCW) made to Queen Mary after seeing the reports.
__________________
“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

For more news and views on today’s unions, go to LaborUnionReport.com.

Shaw's bloodies UFCW's nose again...

Once upon a time, the United Food & Commercial Workers was the bully of the grocery industry.  However, having had its clock cleaned so thoroughly in the famous grocery strike of 2003 and 2004, the union has become a shadow of its former self.

A case in point is the UFCW's latest press release:

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 791 announced today that Shaw’s Supermarkets rejected the union’s contract offer and countered with a very regressive proposal that is significantly worse than their two previous packages. With no agreement reached, the strike at the Shaw’s Methuen Perishable Distribution Center is in its ninth week. Local 791 has filed an unfair labor practice against Shaw’s with the National Labor Relations Board stating the company is bargaining in “bad faith.”


[snip]


Since the onset of the strike nearly two months ago, concerned citizens, political, religious, labor and community leaders from across New England have expressed their support for the striking Methuen workers, and have called on the company to bargain in good faith so their workers can go back to work. After the company’s regressive proposal yesterday, supporters of the Methuen workers are vowing to continue the fight until Shaw’s and its parent company — Supervalu – agree to a decent and fair proposal.

Problem is, the company has already exercised its legal right to permanently replace the UFCW strikers, leaving the union little choice but to issue press releases as it hopes for a National Labor Relations Board ruling in its favor.
__________________
“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

For more news and views on today’s unions, go to LaborUnionReport.com.

Would UFCW strikers benefit from Employee Free Choice Act?

Let's see if you can find the flaw in this story:

UFCW strikers go on strike over management greed.

Members of the United Food & Commercial Workers, Local 1167 have been on strike for nearly a week.

With earnings of $19.55 an hour, they will have wasted $782 in wages as of tomorrow.

The UFCW workers are out on strike over wages--they want a $0.10 per hour increase

Their employer does not want to give it to them.

"I think they've been offered a very good contract," says their boss.

Their employer is currently using management and (presumably) temporary replacement workers to fill the strikers' jobs for now.

If their employer gives in to the strikers demands tomorrow (one week after the strike started) by granting the $0.10 per hour increase, it will take the strikers three years and 40 weeks to recoup what they have lost in the one week they have been out on strike.  If the strike lasts a month, it will take the strikers 15 years and two weeks to make up the money they will have lost...if they get that dime an hour increase.

Now, here's where it gets interesting:

Unions have spent years and hundreds of millions of over a billion dollars to get politicians elected in order to get a law passed called the Employee Free Choice Act.  One of the rallying cries for EFCA is the allegedly weak labor laws here in the U.S.  And, one of the cornerstones of EFCA is a process called binding arbitration--a process where a government arbitrator imposes a union contract on the unionized employer.

In fact, here's what one union has about EFCA on its website:

The Employee Free Choice Act is legislation designed to protect the middle class by giving workers a free choice and fair chance to join a union. Employee Free Choice would ultimately raise wages, benefits, and working conditions for workers. It would do it by empowering workers with the chance to join a union in a simple one-step process: if a majority of workers choose union representation, their company must honor that choice and negotiate a union contract. It also holds companies accountable for trying to suppress workers’ freedom to join a union. CEOs negotiate their contracts—Employee Free Choice would ensure workers have the same right. With more members uniting for a voice on the job, we can build more power at the bargaining table to negotiate better contracts and restore the American Dream for millions of workers.

Despite the fact that EFCA will ultimately destroy more jobs, unions have used just about every labor-management conflict imagineable (like the example above) to push for this legislation.

So here's a couple of questions (and the rub):

Would EFCA help the strikers that we used in the example above get their $0.10 per hour increase?

Would it matter?

Or, since these workers are already unionized and EFCA's binding arbitration provision only applies to newly unionized workers, would they still be striking their greedy employer over a measly $0.10 per hour?

Does it matter that the greedy employer cited above is, in fact, the United Food & Commercial Workers whose own employees went out on strike last week?

And does it matter that the above EFCA quote is from the same UFCW local's website?

Perhaps the word hypocrisy should begin with capital "U."

...but it probably doesn't matter.
__________________

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

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Not Your Normal UFCW Strike

With unions, they just go together like hand and glove:  Strikes and unions, that is.

A unionized workforce negotiates with management.  Management gives the union workers a lousy offer and the union workers strike.

It happens more often than most union bosses would care to admit.

And they really would rather you not know about this.

The United Food & Commercial Workers is a 1.3 million-member amalgamation of a union representing baggers, checkers, meat cutters, deli persons, slaughterhouse workers, nursing home aides and other assorted classifications.

And it has a bit of a union problem:

Workers who process union insurance claims and membership dues paperwork went on strike Thursday -- against the union that employs them.

About 20 office workers at Local 1167 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, the union that represents employees of the area's major supermarkets, walked off their jobs at the local's Bloomington office in a contact dispute at 3:30 p.m. and began picketing their own union.

The office workers, who are also members of the union, say they no longer want to be classified and paid the same levels as workers in stores.

Ariana Banuelos, one of the striking workers, said she and most of the office workers once worked in the stores -- and left to do more challenging work. She said they should be paid better for that.

"We asked for 10 cents more an hour and were turned down. They pretty much said no, no, no," Banuelos said of the union management. "Our only other alternative is to strike."

Bill Lathrop, president of Local 1167, said the office workers have always been paid based on the contract UFCW negotiates with the stores. Currently the office workers make $19.55 per hour.

Lathrop said it was painful being picketed by his own workers but he is not planning any immediate steps to rectify the situation.

"I think they've been offered a very good contract," Lathrop said.  [Emphasis added.]

Wait.  Let's see if we've got this straight:

Management (the UFCW) is letting its own workers go out on strike over ten cents an hour?

Talk about corporate union greed.

According to the union's website:

At approximately 3:30 PM April 15th, 2010 the Dues Membership and Benefits Department employees of UFCW 1167 turned down the Area Standard Agreement of $19.55 per hour (Experienced Food Clerk Rate) and walked off the job.

All employees here at the local have an outstanding benefits package superior to that of the stores (Holiday, Pension, Full time 80 HRS of sick leave, etc)

The Union Office remains open 8:00AM to 4:00PM and our management staff is available to answer contract questions and file grievances. Union Representatives will continue to serve our membership out in the stores as usual. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our membership.

Sadly, though, it's not the first time the UFCW has had its own union staff go out on strike.

But, let's just keep this our little secret...k?

__________________

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

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For more news and views on today’s unions, go to LaborUnionReport.com.

NLRB issues complaint against UFCW: Union behemoth refused to recognize employees' right to quit union

The United Food & Commercial Workers, the mega-union that represents grocery workers in many states, has refused to recognize employees' right to quit the union, according to a complaint issued by the National Labor Relations Board.

Fry's Food Stores of Arizona and the United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 99 violated labor laws by refusing to recognize an employee group's efforts to quit the union, according to a complaint issued March 31 by the National Labor Relations Board.

The ruling could make it easier for some 30,000 UFCW members in Arizona to quit the union.

Union spokeswoman Ellen Anreder said the UFCW plans to fight the complaint. A Fry's representative did not return calls seeking comment.

The action stems from unfair-labor-practices charges filed in December by the National Right to Work Foundation on behalf of seven Fry's employees. The charges allege that the workers resigned their union memberships in writing at various times in fall 2009, as the organization was preparing to strike against grocers Fry's and Safeway.

The union refused to acknowledge the resignations and continued to collect dues, which were deducted from the workers' paychecks by Fry's, despite written notices rescinding the authorization, the charges state.

We've written before of the UFCW in Arizona, including its attacks on Arizona-based grocer Basha's.

For more information on the United Food & Commercial Workers, go here.

__________________

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

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For more news and views on today’s unions, go to LaborUnionReport.com.

Socialists: UFCW's New Stop & Shop Contract is 'Crap'...

Just hours before 36,000 New England grocery workers were to strike, negotiators for the United Food & Commercial Workers and grocer Stop & Shop reached a new three-year contract.  While there appears to have been some give and take in the agreement, the Socialist take on the contract is anything but flattering:

...[S]ome of the workers who gathered for the meeting at a function hall in Randolph, located just south of Boston, were angry that a portion of the pay increases for this year had been replaced by a signing payment and the increases themselves were negligible.

Brian [an employee] said there was good and bad in the contract. “The wage rate is not good, especially for the part-timers. I think all the wages could be higher.”Andrea Fay, a bakery worker who voted for the contract, said, “It’s not that great, but I can’t afford to strike, I’d lose my home. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. The company is going to give you what they want to.”

The wage increases are indeed paltry. Full-time weekly employees will receive a $750 signing bonus and a wage increase totaling $1.15 an hour over the course of the three-year contract. That figure includes a 25-cent an hour pay raise this year, beginning in August.

Part-time workers with more than two years of service will receive a $400 signing bonus, and a total 60-cent per hour increase over three years. But their first raise of 30 cents per hour is not due until March next year, with a further 30 cents per hour in 2012.

Part-timers with 12 to 24 months of service will get a $300 signing bonus next week and a total 55-cent per hour increase: 25 cents per hour in March 2011 and a 30 cent per hour hike in March 2012. Those with less than 12 months service will receive a $100 signing bonus and a 25-cent per hour raise in 2011 and a further 25-cent an hour raise in 2012.

Under the new contract there will be no extra health care costs for this year, but from March 2011 there will be increases of between $12 and $20 per month for all full- and part-time employees. The rate of increase will depend on the cost of current policies, and the increases will remain in place for the next three years.

Many of the part-time employees had hoped the contract negotiations would provide an opportunity to improve their working conditions. Gary Little is a part-time worker at the Stop & Shop in Watertown, Mass. “For part-timers it’s crap,” he said of the contract. “I work part-time. We have to wait until Fridays to get our schedule. You can’t plan anything, like a doctor’s appointment. How can you make an appointment for the next Monday when you don’t know what days and hours you’ll be working? Everything’s up in the air.


More here.

There's no mention yet on whether there will be an increase on union dues, but time will tell.

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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776


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For more news and views on today’s unions, go to LaborUnionReport.com.

Countdown: UFCW Just Hours Away From Striking New England Grocery Chain?

With an already expired contract, the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) is gearing up for a possible strike tomorrow against New England grocer Stop & Shop.

However, since losing the 2004-2005 grocery strike (and lockout) in Southern California, the UFCW has refrained from striking grocery chains over the last few years (including in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico earlier this year).

More here...

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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

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Honor UFCW's Amish Market Boycott? It depends what's on tomorrow's menu...

The United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) staged a protest in New York City earlier today to announce a boycott of Amish Market [no relation to the Amish of horse and buggy fame].

After a Rosie O'Donnell impersonating politician spoke at the rally, avid union man, Tommy Keating proudly stated [at 1:15] that "the country should be run by unions."  [Apparently, Tommy doesn't watch the news?]

However, when asked if he would continue eating at the Amish Market (or would he support the UFCW's boycott), avid union man Tommy Keating declared:

“We’ll see. Depends on what’s on tomorrow's menu.”

It sounds as though, in a union town like New York, a boycott can be broken by serving a pastrami and rye.

And union bosses wonder why they can't keep members?


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UNBELIEVABLE! Union Gives Ousted Bosses Truck and a Car As Retirement Gifts!

A week ago, we wrote about Crisanta Duran's campaign for Congress.  Ms. Duran is the daughter of accused nepotist and money mismanager, Ernie Duran, Jr. the outgoing boss of Colorado's UFCW Local 7.

As Mr. Duran was voted out of office earlier this year amid allegations of improprieties, it seems his soon-to-be former members may have made the right call.

According to Denver's Westword, the outgoing Executive Board of UFCW Local 7 has voted to give Mr. Duran and his sidekick outgoing Secretary-Treasurer Stan Kania their union vehicles as parting gifts--gifts paid for by his union members dues.

Today was the outgoing executive board's last meeting. Duran serves as chairman of that board and when his term is up on Dec. 31, he's slated to keep his 2007 diesel-fueled Ford truck. Kania will drive home his 2006 Ford Five Hundred car, which he says has 59,000 miles on it.

"I told the board that if they wanted to do me a favor, they'd give me a motorcycle," Kania jokingly told Westword last month. "They said no."

They don't call it a racket for nuttin'...

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After Biting Basha's Into Bankruptcy, Union Calls Off Attack Dogs

The United Food & Commercial Workers hates nonunionized grocery stores. So much so, in fact, that the UFCW bosses' approach to nonunion grocers has been, as former UFCW president Doug Dority declared, to: "...either reduce these chains' market share ... or we must put them out of business. There is no other option."

Tom McNutt, another UFCW chieftain, once stated, "If we can't organize [nonunion supermarkets], the best thing to do is to erode their business as much as possible."

In Arizona, that 'scorched earth' mentality forced family-owned Basha's supermarkets to file for bankruptcy in July. Before finally succumbing, the iconic Arizona grocer had endured four years of relentless and damaging UFCW attacks.

In July, the Arizona Republic noted:

The 1.4 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union has conducted a years-long campaign to punish Bashas' for daring to resist its efforts to unionize company workers.

The union manufactured a dubious "scandal" about baby food sold at Bashas' stores. It launched a remorseless campaign, especially in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods, to turn loyal Bashas' customers away from the company.

It has organized rallies alleging, egregiously and falsely, that the Basha family is somehow anti-immigrant. It has spread baseless rumors about the cleanliness of Bashas' warehouses. And it has conducted a leaflet campaign characterizing Bashas' as a higher-cost supermarket than its competitors.

It would be one thing if any of the allegations against Bashas' were proved. They are not. It would be another thing if the Bashas' employees the union seeks to represent are underpaid compared with unionized workers elsewhere. They are not. Bashas' workers actually make slightly more than local union-represented supermarket employees. [Emphasis added.]

Moreover, when Basha's filed in July we pointed out that:

Bashas Supermarkets, Inc. had 14,000 employees not so long ago. To the UFCW, Bashas' 14,000 employee workforce meant approximately $420,000 (at $30 per month) in union dues every month, or $5,040,000 every year. [The chain is now down to 10,000 employees.]

The problem was, the UFCW didn't want the employees to vote on union representation through a secret-ballot, the UFCW wanted the Company to agree to "neutrality" and "card-check." In essence, like a gang of rustlers trying to steal a rancher's herd in the dead of night, the UFCW wanted the Bashas' family to turn their employees over to the union without a fight. [Emphasis added.]

Yesterday, a truce was called between the UFCW and Basha's, making way for Basha's to emerge from bankruptcy:

According to court documents, both sides have agreed to call off negative informational campaigns against one another and settle a raft of lawsuits.

"All parties will terminate hostile public campaigns and the use of Websites supporting these campaigns," the agreement reads.

Additionally, the union will suspend its efforts to organize the supermarket chain's employees "for a period of time."

The documents did not specify a time, but Phoenix labor lawyer Christopher Mason said six months to a year is typical.

Given the destruction that the United Food & Commerical Workers has caused to this well-regarded Arizona grocer, as well as the thousands of jobs it has cost Arizonans, "six months to a year" seems much too short.

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"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine December 23, 1776

A Family Affair: UFCW Legal Counsel & Ousted President's Daughter Files for Colorado House Seat

The daughter of Ernie Duran, Jr., the accused nepotist and money mismanager, as well as soon-to-be ex-president of United Food & Commercial Workers' Local 7 in Denver has filed papers to run for the House District 5 seat being vacated by a term-limited Joel Judd.

Crisanta Duran, is legal counsel for the UFCW local, as well as listed as the 19th vice president (out of 25) for the local. Her father, who recently lost a re-election bid (which he and his union-employed family are currently disputing) is the president of the local.

UFCW Local 7, according to reports on file with the US. Department of Labor, took in over $13.8 million in 2008 from Colorado workers (most of whom work in Denver and vicinity grocery stores).

According to one news report:

Former employees said Duran and his family are living the good life on the union
dues of some of the lowest-paid workers in the state.

[Note: According to the DOL report, the average UFCW Local 7 members paid an average of $644 in dues and initiation fees. Because Colorado is not a Right-to-Work state, the vast majority of these workers are required to pay union dues or be fired from their jobs.]

"I'm not sure if the common union member is aware of how much the Duran family brings home in salary. In addition to their salary, the expenses that they have that the union pays for," said Irene Goodell, Duran's former secretary who was fired and who is suing for wrongful termination.

Ms. Duran, her father, as well as her brother (Ernie Duran, III aka E3) are fighting to retain their lucrative positions with the UFCW local, but that combativeness should come as no surprise, according Denver's Westword blog:

Duran's combativeness should come as no surprise to readers of two late '90s reports by former Westword staffer Eric Dexheimer. The articles told the tale of a young UFCW worker who was sexually assaulted by her boss, Gilbert Padilla; afterward, she filed a civil lawsuit pinning part of the blame for the attack on Local 7. May 1997's "An Unholy Union" notes that Duran is a boxing aficionado who kept a heavy bag in his office and, according to several sources, once threw a man against a car and threatened to "beat the sh*t" out of him. He was also the target of a May 1992 restraining order granted to one of his neighbors after he allegedly "climb[ed] over a six-foot privacy fence to attack and beat plaintiff in plaintiff's backyard." Dexheimer's followup piece, February 1998's "Union Busted," confirms that the assaulted woman settled her lawsuit for a lump sum payment of $200,000.

Meanwhile, in addition to its internal bickering over nepotism and financial mismanagement, Local 7 has been locked in a two-pronged battle. One is with Denver-area grocers, where UFCW members are voting over the next two weeks on the companies' 'last, best and final offers.' The other battle has been with the Washington, DC-based UFCW international union which has seemed reluctant to let Local 7 leaders call grocery workers out on strike.

Whether Ms. Duran a) retains her UFCW member-paid $119,000 per year salary, b) moves up in Colorado politics to become another pol beholden to unions, or c) gets ousted along with her father, will be determined a multitude of factors, including Colorado's Democrat voters.

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UFCW Local Threatens its Own Staff Union With Layoffs!

From the Hypocritical Union Department.

With its top officers raking in $177k and $145k, respectively, members of the United Food & Commercial Workers, Local 5 members had their dues increased on them earlier this year.

Now, with its financial house in disarray, the union is going to its own unionized employees and looking to open its contract with the staff union.

According to a letter sent to the staff union F.A.I.R., if the UFCW leadership cannot convince the staff unions to re-open their contracts, the union threatens that "Local 5 will have no choice but to implement severe budget reductions that will include layoffs in each of our bargaining units and a reduction in service to our members."

Sounds like Big Business, eh?

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UFCW bosses quibble on constitutional language as member claims union is "playing games with our lives..."

Amidst the worst recession in a generation, members of the United Food & Commercial Workers are upset with their union for, of all things, not allowing them to walk off their jobs.

In Colorado, where UFCW Local 7 has been negotiating for more than six months with the grocery chains there, local union members have urged their parent union in Washington to give them permission to strike.

However, it seems that the UFCW bosses in Washington are reluctant to allow their members to go through another devastating strike like they did in southern California in 2003-04.

According to 9News.com:

Unionized Safeway workers in Colorado have voted to authorize a strike, but workers cannot walk out without permission from the UFCW international union.

UFCW Local 7 spokeswoman Laura Chapin told the Longmont Times-Call newspaper on October 2nd, "We do have strike sanction from the international, which is key".

The international union tells 9Wants to Know investigative reporter Kyle Clark that such sanction is under consideration but has not been granted.

A letter from the international union to local branch on September 15th gives Colorado workers the ability to vote on a "final offer" from the supermarkets, but makes clear the local union "must receive final authorization" before beginning a strike.

Several union members tell 9Wants to Know that UFCW Local 7 President Ernie Duran Jr. told workers that strike sanction had been given.

According to a letter the local president sent to UFCW International President Joe Hansen, the international's dragging of its feet appears to be wearing thin in Colorado, as the local presses its case to strike over the holidays.

As noted above, on June 19, 2009, you stated you would not let this process drag out and would facilitate securing a last, best and final offer. Almost five (5) months have lapsed since those words were written. Despite numerous bargaining sessions, attended by International Representatives, this has not been accomplished. Moreover, the workers and I have repeatedly asked the Corporations to submit their “last, best and final” offers. They have consistently refused to do so. More importantly, the Corporate Negotiators have made only minor changes in their proposals since April and have said they will reduce pension benefits. This will adversely affect workers until the day they die.

As I told you in June, time is of the essence. We have already lost many holidays. We simply cannot let Thanksgiving and Christmas pass us by. As you are well aware, January, February and March are the slowest months of the year. Further, the Corporations have scheduled an arbitration, wherein they are attempting to eliminate all adjustable benefits and future pension accruals, on December 16, 17 and, if necessary, 18. Finally, the winter in Colorado can be punishing.

I respectfully request you release the final strike sanction. I firmly believe the Corporations do not want a strike or lockout. If they know we can go out before the upcoming holidays, I believe they will bargain seriously and a settlement can be reached.

[Emphasis added.]

Meanwhile, UFCW member and former Safeway worker Arlys Carlson states on Local 7's website:

“We were told by the International that we had sanction to move forward on the strike votes. After the workers voted to strike in order to get a fair contract, we were told at the Oct 20 negotiations session that the requirements had been met, that they had the results, and a decision could happen in a day or two....

The International needs to respect our votes and give us final sanction as soon as possible. We have delivered our part of the equation, and now the International needs to deliver theirs. The International is playing games with our lives, our futures and our families’ needs.”

To the UFCW, the slogan United We Bargain, Divided We Beg seems to have a special meaning--especially as UFCW members beg their own union for permission to go out on strike.

To read more about the UFCW, go here.

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IN ARIZONA, THE UFCW'S WAR ON WORKERS RIGHTS TAKES ITS TOLL

An Arizona Icon Falls Prey to the UFCW's Thuggery

"If we can't organize [nonunion supermarkets]," Tom McNutt, president of Local 400 of the United Food & Commercial Workers once stated, "the best thing to do is to erode their business as much as possible."

According to UnionFacts.com: This is the slash-and-burn theory driving UFCW's political-style PR offensive against Wal-Mart. Because the union has failed to organize workers at the chain, its leaders want to harm the company's bottom line and its employees.

"Organizing is war," according to longtime UFCW leader Joe Crump, and that means harassing nonunion employers and "costing them enough time and energy and money to either eliminate them or get them to surrender to the union." He added that employers must be made to "pay for operating nonunion." In an article titled "The Pressure is On: Organizing Without the NLRB," Crump wrote:

After a three-year struggle, the battle with Family Foods is over. Do we represent the employees? No. The company went out of business ... Perhaps even more important is the message that had been sent to nonunion competitors: There is no "free lunch" in our jurisdiction.

Speaking about the same campaign, former UFCW president Doug Dority argued that his union "must either reduce these chains' market share ... or we must put them out of business. There is no other option."

The UFCW's "Indecent Joy" at Taking Another Company Down

Bashas Supermarkets, Inc. had 14,000 employees not so long ago. To the UFCW, Bashas' 14,000 employee workforce meant approximately $420,000 (at $30 per month) in union dues every month, or $5,040,000 every year. [The chain is now down to 10,000 employees.]

The problem was, the UFCW didn't want the employees to vote on union representation through a secret-ballot, the UFCW wanted the Company to agree to "neutrality" and "card-check." In essence, like a gang of rustlers trying to steal a rancher's herd in the dead of night, the UFCW wanted the Bashas' family to turn their employees over to the union without a fight.

Well, in Arizona, the land of the famous Apache Warrior-Chief Geronimo, the home of Wyatt Earp during the days when cowboys would settle scores with their pistols like at the gunfight at the OK Corral, companies are not too keen on selling their employees out to pushy union bosses, just because the union wants their dues.

The stage was set for an old-fashioned showdown. The mud was slung, the rustlers used their dirty tricks and, unfortunately in this case, the gang of rustlers outnumbered the rancher and his cowhands.

As a result, the UFCW can now claim victory in causing more grocery workers to lose jobs as an Arizona icon, Bashas Supermarkets, Inc., filed for bankruptcy on Monday.

According to the Arizona Republic, here is what this grocery chain has had to tolerate during the UFCW's war to take away Bashas' employees' right to a secret-ballot:

Bashas' is tormented...by an international labor union that now is taking indecent joy in the company's woes.

The 1.4 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union has conducted a years-long campaign to punish Bashas' for daring to resist its efforts to unionize company workers.

The union manufactured a dubious "scandal" about baby food sold at Bashas' stores. It launched a remorseless campaign, especially in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods, to turn loyal Bashas' customers away from the company.

It has organized rallies alleging, egregiously and falsely, that the Basha family is somehow anti-immigrant. It has spread baseless rumors about the cleanliness of Bashas' warehouses. And it has conducted a leaflet campaign characterizing Bashas' as a higher-cost supermarket than its competitors.

It would be one thing if any of the allegations against Bashas' were proved. They are not. It would be another thing if the Bashas' employees the union seeks to represent are underpaid compared with unionized workers elsewhere. They are not. Bashas' workers actually make slightly more than local union-represented supermarket employees. [Emphasis added.]

No, the UFCW has worked diligently to hound customers out of Bashas' stores because it has been denied what it desperately seeks: the estimated $30 to $50 per month it would reap in dues from each of Bashas' 12,000 workers.

Did the union's campaign play a significant role in driving Bashas' into bankruptcy?

Certainly Proulx and Senior Vice President Edward "Trey" Basha believe so. They have collected a thick stack of union-produced anti-Bashas' hate literature.

But while the true effect of UFCW's campaign is (and, likely, will remain)unquantifiable, the level of union hostility directed toward the company, and even toward the Basha family directly, is indisputably astonishing.

Anti-immigrant? Anti-minority? Bashas' food stores operate in neighborhoods and regions of the state where no other supermarket chain will go. The company has an entire division - Bashas' Diné - devoted exclusively to Navajo Nation stores.

Bashas' has much work to do to escape Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It would be good if it could climb out of its deep economic hole without fearing that union thugs will be waiting, laden with lies, up top.

A History of Dirty Tactics Used on Arizona's Union-Free Chains

As the Republic notes:

The union lost a bid in 2002 to represent workers at Bashas' Food City Hispanic markets and tried to organize the whole company in 2006 when Bashas' changed its health-care plan without consulting the union.

In its bid to represent Bashas' employees, the UFCW has used boycotts, pickets, tactics designed to scare customers and a raft of federal complaints with the National Labor Relations Board and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and other agencies, Manning said.

Bashas' countered with a 2007 defamation/racketeering lawsuit against the union that recently amended to include extortion. The suit alleges the union threatened to "destroy" Bashas' with the same tactics it used on Southwest Supermarkets and MegaFoods, if it didn't allow the UFCW in to represent its employees.

Southwest and MegaFoods were non-union stores, like Bashas', that earlier filed for Chapter 11 protection and ultimately went out of business.

"We can't force union representation on our employees," Proulx said of the company's decision not to let the union in. "That's something they have a right to vote on."

Sadly, while this Arizona icon falls, the biggest losers of all are Bashas' employees and the citizens of the Grand Canyon state.

Note: The writer of this post grew up in Arizona and, from time to time, would shop at Bashas'.

UFCW Gets Contract at Massive Pork Plant

The plant had been a target of the United Food & Commercial Workers' union for more than 15 years.

It had been the site of mass rallies, a corporate campaign of negative publicity, community and clergy activism...all aimed at getting more than 4,000 workers to pay union dues (up to an estimated $1.1 million per year).

Finally, last December, the UFCW and their henchmen succeeded in getting voted into Smithfield's massive Tar Heel (NC) pork-processing plant by a mere 52% of the ballots cast.

Now, the UFCW has negotiated its first contract at the plant, scoring an obvious victory: the ability to collect union dues from the workers.

In the meantime, what did the union do for the workers? Accorting to this press report, the UFCW negotiated the same health care package workers had before unionization, the same retirement package workers had before unionization, a minor increase in company-paid vacation and...

...wait for it...


...wait for it...


Wage increases that amount to $0.37 per hour for the next four years!

Oh yeah. The UFCW also negotiated a grievance procedure into the contract. However, since unions have the legal right to deny workers individual grievances, we don't consider this a major accomplishment.

And for that, the UFCW gets more than a million a year in union dues!

"We are living in historic times right now," said Terry Slaughter (no pun intended), one of the pro-UFCW workers.

Apparently, putting lipstick on a pig in North Carolina is different than putting lipstick on a pig elsewhere, than it may indeed be historic.

For more about the United Food & Commercial Workers, go to 1-888-NO-UNION.COM's profile on the UFCW here.

Update on Union Pensions: Officers Funds Flush as Rank & File Suffer

Following our post below wherein we described the sorry state of union pensions, the following article was forwarded to us.

The Washington Examiner is reporting that:

Pension plans for union officers remain healthy and well-funded even as rising liabilities threaten to consume the savings of their rank and file counterparts who participate in different funds within the same labor organization, according to a Hudson Institute study.

This disparity became evident from a sample of the 21 largest union and staff pension plans from the same organizations. They are: The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), UNITE-HERE, the United Steelworkers, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the Plumbers and Pipefitters, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the Sheet Metal Workers and the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.

“This issue of rank and file pension plans being funded less than the officer pension
plans is extraordinarily serious and shows a great moral failing on the part of the unions,” said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute who authored the study.

Read the entire article here.

Hat-tip to Bret Jacobson

Uh Oh, UFCW, Hi-Tech is Coming to Your Local Grocer

The following has been cross-posted on LaborUnionReport.com:

The United Food & Commercial Workers has a major (as in HUGE) problem…and it’s not Wal-Mart.

For years, Wal-Mart has been the bane of the UFCW by stealing customers by offering lower prices than the traditionally higher-priced (and often unionized) grocery chains.

However, while the UFCW (and the union movement as a whole) has focused on bringing Wal-Mart down, one of the UFCW’s own unionized chains is preparing to put a stake through the UFCW’s heart by arming shoppers with hi-tech scanners.

According to WPIX, 18 Stop & Shop supermarkets in the Long Island area are offering hand held Motorola scanners to shoppers, with more stores to soon follow.

Also there are other supermarkets looking to use this new technology, which is making the trip to the grocery store much easier for shoppers.

“It always good to save money and time, I’m able to pack out as I go and I can check
out a lot faster and I can see what I’m spending as I go.” said shopper Andrea
Cunningham.

The “Scan It” technology works on produce as well and it allows you to see if the item is on sale.

This certainly does not bode well for the UFCW.