Southern California Bargaining

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Collective Bargaining, Kroger, Organizing, Press Releases, Retail Food, Safeway, Southern California Bargaining, UFCW Industries

UFCW MEMBERS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA REACH TENTATIVE AGREEMENT WITH NATIONAL GROCERS

Jul 18, 2007

Community-Worker Solidarity, Regional And National Support Win The Fight For Quality, Affordable Health Care And A Living Wage For All Workers

Washington, DC—Last night, over 60,000 grocery workers in Southern California represented by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) reached a tentative agreement with the country’s largest supermarkets: Kroger, Safeway, and Supervalu.

Details of the contract will be available Monday after workers vote on whether to ratify the agreement on Sunday, July 22.

Southern California UFCW members had the support of community and religious leaders, shoppers, sister unions and UFCW members nationwide throughout the six months of negotiations in their effort to gain improved health care coverage and fair wages.

“This contract goes a long way in maintaining good jobs with health care, wages that pay the bills, and a loyal productive workforce in the grocery industry that is good for workers, communities, and businesses,” said UFCW International President Joe Hansen.

Throughout the negotiations process, UFCW members demonstrated solidarity and strength in bargaining for a fair contract. Seven UFCW locals in Southern California all worked together in bargaining and coordinating campaign actions and strategies.

Coordinated action with supporters and customers played a pivotal role in gaining a positive settlement. Union members, community members, religious groups, grocery workers, and supporters knocked on thousands of doors, handed out flyers, sent emails and letters of support, wrote editorials, attended rallies and marches, spoke out in churches, and signed pledge cards supporting UFCW members.

The coordinated effort in Southern California is part of a UFCW nationwide unity bargaining program. By supporting each other regionally and nationally, as well as engaging customers and community members in their struggle, grocery workers are improving grocery industry jobs for themselves and their communities.

To learn more about other bargaining campaigns, go to: www.groceryworkersunited.org.

Collective Bargaining, Kroger, Press Releases, Retail Food, Safeway, Southern California Bargaining, UFCW Industries

Statement by United Food and Commercial Workers International Union On Grocery Bargaining in Southern California

May 10, 2007

After seven months of unproductive negotiations with grocery employers, UFCW Southern California local unions left the bargaining table on Tuesday. The latest offer by the three grocery companies, Safeway, Kroger and Supervalu, was an insult to members, and left UFCW leadership with no choice but to break off negotiations.

The companies are trying to force another strike, like the work stoppage they caused in 2003 that put 60,000 UFCW members on picket lines for nearly five months and disrupted shoppers and communities throughout the region.

The three grocery giants have repeatedly denied members’ need for accessible, affordable health care, and living wages for all workers.  This despite the fact that all three companies have shown a recent rise in profits that analysts predict will continue to grow.

It would appear that Safeway CEO Steve Burd knows that workers need affordable, quality health care for themselves and their families.  That’s why he announced earlier this week that Safeway and nearly 40 other companies were launching the Coalition to Advance Healthcare Reform (CAHR).  The UFCW applauds Burd and other CAHR participants as welcome voices to this important discussion.  We wish that all three grocery leaders would bring this commitment to the bargaining table.

UFCW members will be reaching out to consumers in Southern California and across the country to remind the grocery giants that their success is due to workers and shoppers, and that they need to show concern for their community and workers by reaching a fair agreement with Southern California workers.

Two grocery companies in Southern California, Stater Bros. and Gelson’s, settled fair contracts with UFCW members that included quality, affordable health care and living wages for all workers. That two regional supermarket chains can afford to offer their workers a fair contract proves that it’s possible to be profitable while still showing your workers respect.

If these regional markets can offer a fair contract, then surely Supervalu, Kroger, and Safeway — national supermarket chains that are currently raking in billions of dollars in profits — can do the same.

Southern California’s grocery workers, together with Stater Bros. and Gelson’s Markets, created a road map to a fair contract, a map that can be followed by the national chains. But instead of doing the right thing and partnering with the workers who helped them return to profitability, these national companies dragged out negotiations in an effort to keep their workers’ wages low and benefits out of reach for workers and families.

Southern California’s grocery workers are unified, and UFCW-represented grocery workers across the country are supporting them as well. But it’s time to end this drawn-out, dead-end negotiations process. With the support of the public, UFCW members can and will win a fair contract — even if means a long, difficult battle.

 

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

Statement of UFCW Int’l President Doug Dority On the Southern California Strike

Feb 27, 2004

Today, I am pleased to join with the officers of the seven Southern California UFCW local unions in their announcement of a tentative agreement in the longest major strike in the history of the UFCW, the largest and longest strike in the history of the supermarket industry, and the first major strike of the 21st century.

It is also one of the most successful strikes in history.

After five months, the picket lines remain strong, our members remain united, and customers continue to honor the workers’ picket lines costing the supermarket conglomerates billions of dollars in revenue.

Every day, support for the fight for affordable health care grows stronger. Community and religious leaders have put their bodies on the line in acts of civil disobedience. There have been scores of arrests from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay area to Baltimore, Maryland. There are daily rallies, demonstrations, picket lines and handbilling from Seattle and Portland to Washington, DC. The Southern California supermarket strike has become a national cause.

The men and women on the picket lines are genuine heroes. Their sacrifice for affordable family health care has motivated and activated workers across the nation. I am honored to be part of their union, and I am humbled as well as inspired by their dedication, strength and selflessness.

These members will never be forgotten. They will always be honored and respected. We owe them a debt of gratitude. They have sent a message to employers everywhere that attempts to eliminate health care benefits will come at a high price. Workers will not sit idle as their families are denied health care protection. Workers will stand united and fight for health care.

In Southern California, workers were given no choice but to fight. UFCW members have never faced, nor has nay UFCW-represented employer ever made a more extreme or drastic demand—a demand that would have effectively eliminated affordable health care benefits, as did the supermarket employers in Southern California. The UFCW, its local unions and its members rose to the challenge. The employers never believed that workers could sustain a five-month strike. The employers completely underestimated the determination and fortitude of their employees.

Through their struggle, the striking and locked out workers have performed a service for the whole country. They have sounded the alarm for all of America—your health care benefits at work are at risk. If the supermarket giants—profitable, growing Fortune 50 mega-corporations—can launch an attack on health care benefits, then every employer is sure to follow. They have sounded the alarm that the American health care system is ready to collapse.

In one year, over 2 million lost health insurance. That’s over 6,000 workers a day.

The fight here has given us a national call to action.

We must have national health care reform. No one company, no one union, no industry or group of workers alone can fix the health care system. We can patch it up. We can protect our members for another contract term, but the system continues to falter, exacting an increasing cost on both workers and employers and leaving more and more families without health care.

Now is the time for action. 2004 is the year to put health care reform on the political agenda and demand that every candidate for office commits to comprehensive, affordable health insurance for every working family.

No worker should ever again be forced to choose between a paycheck and health care benefits. No worker should ever again be forced into the streets for five months to protect health care for their families.

The UFCW will lead the fight for health care reform. And, I believe, with members like our Southern California members—the UFCW will win that fight.