Access to Quality, Affordable Food
Feeding the Hungry
The U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that more than 36 million people in the United States, including 12.6 million children, live in households considered to be food insecure. That is more than 1 in 10 households who experience hunger or the risk of hunger.
Our Feeding the Hungry program brings much needed assistance to the growing number of people facing hunger and food insecurity in our communities. Together with Smithfield, the employer of thousands of our members, the UFCW just completed year one of the three-year, multi-city, coast to coast effort to donate and deliver more than 20 million servings of protein to food banks through Feeding America's network.
Food Deserts
The UFCW has been a leader in the fight against food deserts and has supported legislation such as the Healthy Food Financing Initiative. Lack of access to healthy, affordable foods leads to increased rates of health issues like diabetes and obesity and is a serious threat in low-income urban areas, as well as isolated rural communities.
New York-based UFCW Local 1500 is a leading partner in the New York FRESH Initiative which serves as a model for the national legislation and has successfully launched two major supermarkets into previously underserved areas in the Bronx. Those supermarkets also added hundreds of new jobs and subsequent income to area residents.
>>> Learn more about our program to Feed the Hungry and see if we are coming to a city near you.
Making Change at Walmart
Walmart is the largest private employer in the United States and exerts a massive amount of influence on not only jobs in the retail industry, but on the whole country’s economy. Walmart creates poverty jobs: a worker earning the company-reported average full-time hourly wage working Walmart's definition of full-time would be earning below the federal poverty level for a family of four. Not only does Walmart push retail wages down, but in the meatpacking and food processing industries, Walmart's price pressure on suppliers can lead to downward pressure on workers' wages there, too.
Health Care
Every time they sit down at the bargaining table, UFCW members fight to protect the health care benefits good jobs should have. But the issue of health care in the United States goes beyond the employer-employee relationship. That’s why the UFCW and other labor allies rallied together for health care reform and helped push through the Affordable Care Act, the most sweeping set of health care reform measures since the New Deal. The UFCW remains a member of Health Care for America Now, a coalition of doctors, small business owners, health groups, community and religious organizations and other community leaders joined together to fight for quality, affordable health care for all.
Leukemia
From the northern borders of Canada to the southernmost point in the U.S.; from the Pacific to the Atlantic, UFCW members have renewed their commitment year after year to finding a cure to the deadly disease leukemia. UFCW members have walked, danced, canoed, raffled, run, and more -- making the UFCW one of the top contributors to the Leukemia Society of America, which is dedicated to finding a cure for this fatal blood disease. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society recognized the UFCW with its first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004 for the union members' 23 years of commitment and contributions.
Equal Pay for Equal Work
When women get equal pay, their family incomes rise and the whole family benefits. Equal pay is about basic justice and fairness and basic family economics. More wives and more mothers work for pay than ever before, and they are working more. Their earnings are essential to family support. Pay discrimination costs women a lot but it robs husbands and families, too.
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