December, 2003

Collective Bargaining, Economic Justice, Health Care, Press Releases, Retail Food, Southern California Bargaining, UFCW Industries, UFCW Values

Are the Supermarket Employers Lying About Their Health Plan?

Dec 16, 2003

Health Benefits Experts Challenge Supermarket Employer Claims

Ad Campaign Launches Tuesday, December 16th.

View Ad  (pdf)

Striking supermarket workers continue to expose Safeway’s ‘big lie’ about the health care issues driving the three-month long strike in Southern California.  The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) will run full-page advertisements in the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register, Bakersfield Californian and the San Diego Union Tribune.

The ad reprints an editorial written by health benefits experts, E. Richard Brown, Director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, and Richard Kronick, a Professor in the Department of Family and Preventative Medicine at UC-San Diego.  Their analysis, titled “Supermarkets ‘Offer’ to End Affordable Health Care,” appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 8, 2003.

“It’s time we put an end to Safeway’s big lie about the health care proposals.  Brown and Kronick explain better than anyone exactly how the supermarkets’ proposals would mean and end to health benefits in this industry,” said Doug Dority, UFCW International President.

View Ad (pdf)

Economic Justice, Press Releases, UFCW Values

Corporal John Miller, Annapolis Police Dept, Testifies on Overtime Regulations

Dec 11, 2003

STATEMENT OF CORPORAL JOHN MILLER, ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT, LOCAL 400, UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION (UFCW)

BEFORE THE  DEMOCRATIC POLICY COMMITTEE HEARING ON PROPOSED REGULATORY CHANGES TO OVERTIME EXEMPTIONS IN THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT

Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today. I am currently an officer in the Annapolis Police Department, and have been a police officer for over 17 years. I am also a veteran, having served four years active duty in our nation’s Air Force. Presently, I am a Staff Sergeant in the District of Columbia National Guard, where I perform Homeland Security and other public safety duties. I am accompanied today by my fellow officer, John Lee, who has 10 years of service at the Annapolis Police Department. Both of us are members of Local 400 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW).

As a Corporal and supervisor for the Annapolis police, my principal duty is public safety. I have helped provide escort protection for the President and Vice President and other dignitaries when they visit Annapolis or the Naval Academy. I have also protected the public during demonstrations at the state capitol and performed various other public safety functions, such as DWI patrols and traffic enforcement. Like most other police officers, much of the time I spend performing these duties is on overtime. Like every other police department, we could not function without the flexibility of overtime. And eliminating overtime pay for our first responders would have a devastating impact on our department’s ability to perform vital public safety functions.

Most police and other first responders cannot afford to perform overtime work without overtime pay, and would be extremely resistant to working unpaid overtime. Forced unpaid overtime would seriously compromise public safety as well as undermine officer morale and department structure. Public safety departments faced with the possibility of unpaid overtime would likely demand even more hours from first responders, further straining morale and undermining job performance. In addition, officers will have less time to volunteer for National Guard duty, further compromising the effective strength of our armed forces.

Like many police officers, overtime pay constitutes approximately 20% of my total income. For some officers in our department, overtime pay is 25-30% of their income. If I were to lose that pay, it would radically change my family life. We would have to move into a different home, as we could no longer afford the mortgage on our present home. Already, I have to live about an hour’s drive from Annapolis in order to find affordable housing. I’m sure our new home would be even farther, and our 19 year old son and 16 year old daughter would be forced to change schools. If I were to lose that pay, my son’s college plans would be endangered, and so would my daughter’s. Family vacations and many other things that are part of a middle-class lifestyle would be out of the question.

Like any other police officer, I am proud of the work I do. Working in our state capitol, I feel a sense of comradery with your own Capitol Hill Police. Like them, we work hard and willingly take risks to assure that the public and public officials — such as yourselves — are safe and secure in their homes, offices, schools and on the road. Paid overtime work takes us away from our families, but allows us to do our job and to afford many of the things that make our families’ lives better. I know I speak for many first responders everywhere when I say I am extremely disappointed that our government would reward our hard work and public service with a massive pay cut. I implore you to do everything in your power to assure that the Department of Labor does not issue regulations that would take away our overtime pay.

Thank you again for this opportunity.

Economic Justice, Legislation, Press Releases, Social Justice, UFCW Values

Doug Dority Statement on Overtime Regulations

Dec 11, 2003

Statement of Doug Dority
International President
United Food And Commercial Workers International Union

Presented at the Hearing on Proposed Regulatory Changes to Overtime Exemptions in the Fair Labor Standards Act Before the Democratic Policy Committee

December 11, 2003

On behalf of the 1.4 million members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), I want to thank you for this opportunity to voice the concerns, the anger and the outrage of working families across the United States over the largest, single pay cut for workers in history.

The Bush Administration, through its revised overtime regulations, proposes to cut the pay of more than 8 million working families for no other reason than to feed the greed of corporate America.

These families do the extra work to earn the extra pay to save for a home of their own, to give their kids a chance at college, to make the rent and car payments, or may be just have a little extra for a vacation or Christmas presents.

The Bush pay cut has no basis in law, in economics or in addressing the real needs of working families.

The law providing for overtime pay has not changed. Workers need for family and personal time has not changed.  And the need for working families to put in extra hours to earn a little more pay to make ends meet has not changed.  And another thing has not changed—the greed that wants endless work for limited pay.

The Bush Administration would take us back to the 19th century while claiming it wants to “”modernize”" the regulations.

I will tell you there is nothing “”modern”" about long hours and low pay. The Retail Clerks Union, one of the unions that make up the UFCW, was formed over a century ago, specifically because retail store owners required around-the-clock hours without pay. In fact, one of the first demands of the Retail Clerks Union was an end to the practice of requiring clerks to sleep overnight in the stores.

It took almost 50 years before the law was passed that limited work hours and established overtime pay. The law worked. Restrictions on hours created more jobs. Overtime pay helped working families move into the middle class.

Today we see a job gap—the economy goes up but the number of jobs stays the same. Today we see a pay gap—real income goes up at the top but drops out of the bottom for workers. So, the logical step would be to strengthen enforcement of overtime laws.

But the Bush Administration turns logic on its head, and instead proposes to re-write the rules in a way that takes away overtime pay eligibility from millions of workers. Employers could require an increasing number of employees to work unlimited hours without overtime pay. Employers would not only pocket the money that should have gone into workers’ paychecks, employers can steal the time that belongs to families, to communities and to workers themselves.

The Bush pay cut is an assault on working families—it reduces their income and takes away their time together.

The Bush Administration would re-define “”Executive,”" Administrative,”" and “”Professional”" — the limited job categories that have always been exempt from overtime pay—to include a wide range of workers—from a lead produce clerk in a supermarket to a technician in a hospital—that have always been eligible for overtime pay. While these are skilled and valuable workers, they do not have the income or personal control of their work as do the supermarket executive and the medical doctor. To lump skilled labor into exempt job categories simply to deny them overtime is just wrong, and must be stopped.

Bush’s Department of Labor claims that the intent is only to make the rules simpler and easier to apply. The real impact is to make it simpler and easier for employers to declare jobs exempt from overtime pay.

The UFCW represents workers in retail food, food processing, health care and manufacturing. We estimate that 50,000 of our members would fall under the new definitions for exempt job categories. All of them would be surprised to learn they are now “”executives”" or “”professionals.”" They would be outraged when they find out that their new status actually means a pay cut.

I guess this is George W. Bush’s idea of fairness—cuts for everybody. Tax cuts for the wealthy. Pay cuts for the workers.  Of course, the wealthy wind up with more than they deserve, and the workers get less than they need.

It is time we took a stand against greed. We ask your help in making sure that workers get the pay for the hours they work, including their overtime pay. Thank you for this opportunity to voice concerns of working Americans.