Over the last year, the UFCW has undergone a restructuring process so that resources are focused to growing UFCW membership. The UFCW is more powerful with more UFCW members, and that’s the key to negotiating better contracts with employers.
Accordingly, in addition to securing better contracts, one goal of bargaining is growth. The first step to growth is unity bargaining, where UFCW members across the country who work in the same industry or for the same employers unite to bargain for better contracts. This makes sense because UFCW members no longer work for the small, locally owned employers of yesterday. Those small businesses have been taken over and are owned by a handful of national and multi-national employers with millions or billions of dollars in resources.
The recently launched Grocery Workers United is the first example of the UFCW’s unity bargaining campaign in the retail food industry. This campaign has a website, a major email activist program, and bulletin board flyers to keep UFCW grocery workers informed and mobilized. The campaign also creates national collective action through sticker and petition campaigns. For instance, UFCW members who work at Kroger grocery stores throughout the U.S. can show solidarity and support for members bargaining with Kroger stores in a particular area by wearing stickers or signing petitions.
Grocery Workers United has helped secure better contracts for several local unions who have already bargained contracts this year. The UFCW is building on the early success by further mobilizing UFCW members: identifying a “store coordinator” to inform and activate coworkers and customers, doubling the number of e-mail activists, and holding worksite meetings.
While the grocery industry has been the first to engage in unity bargaining, this type of unity campaign will extend to other industries like food processing, meatpacking, and poultry. The ultimate goal of unity bargaining in each industry is to create a core group of activists within our membership who will quickly respond with action in support of UFCW members nationwide. The key to mobilizing UFCW members and creating a core group of activists is through UFCW stewards. Stewards have day-to-day contact with members and can hold in-store or in-plant meetings, handle questions, and be the conduit for union and store information around the clock.
This year, the UFCW is initiating a program of multi-local stewards meetings. In areas where local unions have common employers, stewards can meet together to shape a common agenda and form a common program. Stewards will be trained to talk to their coworkers about union-wide bargaining, how to conduct break room meetings, and how to respond to questions.
This kind of industry-wide unity is a necessity for securing better contracts with our employers. The UFCW will continue to coordinate bargaining and contract expirations dates, as well as continue to use other resources such as political and legislative action and community pressure. But the UFCW’s strength at the bargaining table will come from the commitment of UFCW members uniting and acting together.
Our employers have to be convinced that the UFCW is capable of sustained union‑wide action if we are to convince them to change their behavior. Our employers complain about non-union competition, yet they become just that when they open up new plants or stores as non-union. If our employers want us to confront the non‑union competition, they must cooperate with us at the bargaining table and remain neutral in organizing new plants or stores. We are not going to help our employers grow if they want to expand non-union and have UFCW membership shrink. A union employer accepts and respects the union in every plant or store, in every area.
We can work with our employers to level the playing field with their non-union competition if they cooperate with us in creating a union differential in our contracts that attracts non‑union workers and helps us organize. That is how we can level the playing field. Everyone at every level of the UFCW must constantly, consistently and forcefully raise these issues in all of our dealings with our employers.
For UFCW members, the contract is the way to a better life. It’s what makes them “union” and they must be engaged in the plan for growth. UFCW members must become activists for growth because it’s the way to make contracts better, and that is the way to make life better for UFCW members.