Tagged as workers rights

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UFCW Stewards

WORKERS HAVE A VOICE WITH EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE

Feb 08, 2008

Unions have been the engine behind millions of workers achieving the American Dream.

Over the last 70 years, unions have led the fight for the minimum wage and the eight-hour work day; championed employer-paid health care and pension plans for workers; played a leading role securing Social Security and Medicare for seniors; and won major advances ensuring workplace safety and workers’ rights.

Unions are just as important today in securing livable wages and benefits. Wages of union members are almost 30 percent higher than those of nonunion workers. And when you include the much better health care and pension benefits union workers receive, the total compensation of union workers is 44% higher than that of non-union workers.

 

So it’s no wonder that nearly 60 million workers in America say that would join a union if they could. When given the option, workers want a stable job where they can earn enough to support a family, buy a home, send their children to college, and save for retirement.

The more workers unite together in unions, the better off everyone is. During contract negotiations, you know that having more union workers in your industry means more power at the bargaining table with your employer. Building this worker power in unions is the best way to raise the standard for wages and benefits for all workers.

 

But when unions are under attack, as they are today, workers face stagnant wages and declining health and retirement benefits.

 

Good jobs are vanishing, and health care coverage and retirement security are slipping out of reach. The American dream is slipping away from our children’s reach. For the first time in history, Americans believe their children will be worse off financially than they are.

To restore the American Dream, we need to turn the low-paying, no-benefit jobs of today into the union wage, middle-class jobs of tomorrow. Right now, the power employers have over workers is completely out of hand, and the NLRB doesn’t exercise real strength to protect workers or to level the playing field. Workers deserve the chance to make choices on the job that will help them reach their dreams and give their children a better life.

 

That’s why Congress needs to create a system that respects workers and revives this country’s strong middle class. It needs a system that restores the balance between workers and employers—a system built on fairness, openness and the freedom for workers to make their own choices.

 

Employee Free Choice would do just that. It would protect the ability of workers to come together and form unions to bargain for better wages and benefits and safer working conditions. Employee Free Choice would protect working families by bolstering financial equality and maintaining a strong middle class. We must support Employee Free Choice because all workers deserve the best chance to reach the American Dream.

 

UFCW Stewards

Hormel Workers Prepare to Take Workplace Unity into Chain-Wide Bargaining

Aug 08, 2007

As summer winds down, Hormel workers at five plants across the U.S. are gearing up for a round of bargaining that will have an impact not only on their wages and benefits, but on standards for workers at packinghouses across the industry.
A contract covering 4,000 UFCW members at Hormel plants in Iowa, Georgia, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Minnesota expires in September. It covers members of UFCW Locals 6, 9, 22, 1996, and 1473. Because it is a single, chain-wide contract, the workers will be heading to the bargaining table with more power and leverage than if they were bargaining for just one plant–a fact we are well aware of and plan to use to our maximum advantage.

 

UFCW shop stewards play a big role in cultivating unity and driving contract negotiations that exhibit strength, determination, and solidarity “We’re much more powerful when we have thousands of us together,” says Michael Rasmusson a shop steward at the Hormel plant represented by Local 6 in Algona, Iowa. As fellow Hormel steward, Mark Coufal, of Local 22 in Fremont, Nebraska notes, “The company negotiates from a position of power, and we need to do the same thing. The more members we have backing us, the better chance we have in getting a good contract.”
There’s a lot at stake: wages, health benefits, retiree health benefits, and health and safety issues. Affordable health insurance, in particular, is a big concern. “When people have families, it’s important to have insurance at an affordable rate. If people are paying for it out of their pockets, it makes it hard to put bread on the table, shoes on their kids’ feet, and pay college tuitions,” says Richard Chinander, chief steward from Local 9.
Also on the minds of many of the Hormel stewards is the crucial issue of the company’s determination to see that more and more of its plants arenon-union.
“By Hormel operating union plants as well as non-union plants, they can take the work out of a union plant and move it to a non-union plant….The best thing for our workers would be to unionize all Hormel plants,” says shopsteward Steve Bormann of Local 6.

 

The chain-wide bargaining that will begin in August provides Bormann and the 4,000 other UFCW Hormel workers the opportunity to work together to win a strong new contract that will improve their wages and benefits—and will send a powerful signal to workers at non-union plants. “It will show new employees coming in that unions do work–and not just for wages, but for the future of America and its families,” says Local 22 member and steward Bill Anderson of the Hormel plant in Fremont, Nebraska.
With so much on the line, workers at the five plants already have started talking to co-workers, handing out informational leaflets, and makingplans for the August bargaining. “We all have a lot in common. We all want a fair wage, health care, and to be treated right. That’s why we need to communicate with each other and stand together on these issues,” says steward Ryan Dodds of Local 6. “It’s really important that we start talking and start working together.”
The need for unity is something stewards at all of the five plants agree is key. Says steward Armando Olvera of Local 9: “Unity creates power. We’re much stronger when we’re united.”

UFCW Stewards

Immigration Reform for All Workers

Jun 01, 2007

These days everyone is talking about immigration. In our industries we know firsthand that our immigration system is broken and that corporations have hijacked it for their own profit. We’ve watched employers import, exploit and, ineffect, deport immigrant workers with little or no regard for federal law. We’ve seen them drive down wages and working conditions at the bargaining table–that’s how we know that it’s not immigrant workers who are threatening our livelihoods, but the companies who are hurting all of us.
“It’s the companies that are dragging down our wages,” says Michael Sheffield, a UFCW Local 227 steward at Swift & Co. in Louisville, Kentucky. “A workerno matter where he or she comes from isn’t the one who tries to lower our pay.”

 

The recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at Swift & Co. were yet another example of how our immigration system isn’t working. Basic civil liberties and human dignity were thrown out the window and families torn apart. “I’m pretty upset with our government. I think we can do better than what we did the day of the raids,” says Randy Imler, UFCW Local 22 steward at Swift & Co., whose plant was raided in Grand Island Nebraska. “This is supposed to be the country that everyone wants to come to, not one that people are mad at or afraid to live in.”
As stewards, we’re on the front lines in the fight for a better workplace. We believe that all workers deserve decent wages, benefits, safety conditions and respect–no matter the color of their skin or the language they speak. That’s why it’s so frustrating to know companies specifically hire people to work in dangerous conditions for substandard wages because they don’t know their rights on the job and are too afraid to speak up. “If you’re a union member, and you go to work and pay union dues, the UFCW has a responsibility to protect you just as they would protect the rights of anyone else-no matter your race, creed, or color,” says Kevin Diale, a UFCW Local 227 chief steward at Swift & Co. in Louisville, Kentucky.
Stewards can help educate members on how the system which enables companies to violate workplace laws for immigrant workers is allowing them to violate protections for all workers. Immigration is not an easy thing to discuss, but it’s something we need to talk about-and stewards can take the lead.
“It’s time for a change,” says Lenora Reed, UFCW Local 227 chief steward at Equity Group in Albany, Kentucky. “Our government needs to hold somebody accountable–and it needs to be these companies.” The need for change is clear; however, there’s much debate on what reforms should be made. That’s why the UFCW has presented several principles of reform that you can use as talking points. The most relevant in our industry include:

 

  •  End ineffective work site immigration enforcement programs like “Basic Pilot”and ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE);
  •  Meaningful and enforceable employer punishments for immigration and labor law violations;
  • Wage and working condition protection for all workers;
  • No new guest worker or temporary worker programs that allow employers to turn permanent, full-time, family-supporting jobs into temporary, go-nowhere, exploitative jobs.

The UFCW supports comprehensive immigration reform that respects all workers’ rights. It’s important that we keep in mind that, a hundred years ago,the Polish, Italian, and Southern European immigrants who worked in our nation’s packing plants helped build the UFCW. Today, it’s immigrant workers from Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa who work alongside native-born workers in the processing lines of our industries who can make us stronger.

 

“We work side-by-side because our kids have to eat, because we have bills and rent to pay,” says Lenora Reed, “We share the same duties. We laugh, we joke, we cut up, and we move on. We’re buddies. We’re brothers and sisters.”

 

We look a lot different, but we are still the same union–one that is responsible for representing and protecting UFCW members and is committed to ensuring that all working people, immigrant and native-born, are able to improve their lives and realize the American dream.