Tagged as Employee Free Choice Act

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SPEAKING OUT FOR UNION EARNS PRICERITE WORKER PAY CUT, DEMOTION

Feb 03, 2009

Joe Sorrentino, a worker at a Wakefern PriceRite Supermarket in North Providence, Rhode Island, has been punished for standing up for a union at his workplace, according to charges filed by UFCW Local Union 328 with the National Labor Relations Board.

Sorrentino and other PriceRite employees have been working to organize with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), but have faced a campaign of company harassment and intimidation. Shortly after receiving national attention for speaking out on behalf of the Employee Free Choice Act at a Washington, DC, press conference on January 13, Sorrentino was demoted and given a pay cut—the kind of harassment by corporations against workers that the Employee Free Choice Act would eliminate.

UFCW Local 328, in Providence has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board, seeking reinstatement of Sorrentino’s position and pay, as a Night Crew Chief.

“This is the way companies destroy worker attempts to gain a voice on the job,” said Dave Fleming, UFCW local 328 President. “They wage fear campaigns. They fire. They spy. They intimidate. They send a clear and frightening message that if you support forming a union, you will be punished.”

A study from Cornell University scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner found that:

  • In 25 percent of organizing campaigns, private-sector employers illegally fire workers because they want to form a union.
  • Half of employers threaten to shut down partially or totally if employees join together in a union.
  • Ninety-two percent of private-sector employers, when faced with employees who want to join together in a union, force employees to attend closed-door meetings to hear anti-union propaganda; 80 percent require supervisors to attend training sessions on attacking unions; and 78 percent require that supervisors deliver anti-union messages to workers they oversee.
  • Seventy-five percent hire outside consultants to run anti-union campaigns, often based on mass psychology and distorting the law.

Joe Sorrentino, like countless other workers trying to improve their workplace, exercised his right speak out for a union on the job,” said Fleming. “The next thing he knew, he was demoted with a wage cut of $3 an hour.”

Uncategorized

>A Secretary of Labor Who’ll Work for Workers

Jan 13, 2009

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Working people finally have a fighter in their corner, with Hilda Solis almost certain to be confirmed as the next Secretary of Labor. The California Congresswoman has been a loyal champion for working families, fighting for the rights, interest, and safety of all workers—both immigrant and native-born. Solis has, as Marie Cocco puts it, “a record of unstinting loyalty to those who work and want to work, and who wish to receive in exchange a decent wage and a measure of dignity.”

As the child of immigrants and the first to attend college in her family, she knows how important it is that everyone who works hard in America has the opportunity to achieve the American Dream. She understands that all workers make hard choices and tremendous sacrifices in order to support their families and build a better future, and that it’s the interests and lives of these working people that should be at the heart of any reform of our immigration laws.

That’s why we’re confident that Solis will continue to support meaningful immigration reform, and will oppose unproductive and devastating workplace raids like those the Bush administration used to camouflage the cracks in our broken immigration system. A Los Angeles Times Article pointed out:

Immigrant activists revitalized the American labor movement in the final decades
of the 20th century. Solis, 51, has strong ties to that movement.

Certainly, her record of work for UFCW members alone is proof positive that she doesn’t just talk the talk. She’s a veteran when it comes to walking the walk for workers. Solis applauded President Hansen and the UFCW for exposing the detrimental impacts of workplace immigration raids. Her own background as the daughter of a union shop steward from Mexico and an assembly line worker from Nicaragua has led her to speak out on the immigration issue and stand up for all working families, even against powerful interest groups and big business.

Congresswoman Solis has proven, time and time again, that she puts the interests of all working people, both immigrant and native-born first—and there is no doubt she will continue to do so as Secretary of Labor. As President-elect Obama said, “Under her leadership, I am confident that the Department of Labor will once again stand up for working families.”

We at the UFCW agree, and urge that she be confirmed to the position that she is so eminently qualified for. It’s about time we had a Secretary of Labor who works for all workers.

Organizing

>Price Rite Worker Speaks Out on the Need for Employee Free Choice

Jan 13, 2009

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Today, a PriceRite worker involved in the UFCW’s PriceRite campaign spoke out about the need for Employee Free Choice at a press briefing held at the National Press Club. Representatives from the UFCW, as well as the nation’s top workers’ rights groups, labor experts, and progressive leaders laid out the case for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Joe Sorrentino“The company has made people afraid that they’ll lose their jobs when the union comes in,” said PriceRite worker Joe Sorrentino. He spoke about how the company has intimidated workers who support the union, by telling them that their store will close if they vote for a union, spying on them, sending out letters and even calling the police to arrest organizers who are legally handing out literature to the public.

Workers at PriceRite do not have a union, but many workers at another company owned/and or operated by the same parent company, Wakefern, are represented by the UFCW.

“We just want to the same fair chance to choose a union and have the same union benefits that workers at most ShopRite stores have,” said Sorrentino. “Instead, the company won’t even give us the chance to talk about the union. The Employee Free Choice Act would make it so the company couldn’t interfere with us or try to intimidate employees into voting against their own interests like they do now.”

Sorrentino emphasized the need for Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. “To not pass Employee Free Choice,” he said, “would lead to another generation of low-paying jobs and uninsured Americans. The middle class would be a thing of the past.”

The event was organized by American Rights at Work, representing a broad coalition of labor and workers’ rights advocates, which also previewed new television ads as part of a nationwide ad campaign in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.