On the Line with International President
Joe Hansen
Revitalizing UFCW Power
The UFCW is embarking on a bold, new course to restructure our union to better meet the needs of UFCW members, protect and improve our union contracts, and revitalize worker power at the negotiating table. We are taking steps to build a 21st century worker movement that can meet the challenges of the radically changing global economy.
To achieve this goal, we have disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO and joined with powerful like-minded unions. Our partner unions in this effort include the Teamsters, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the
Laborers, UNITE/HERE, the Carpenters, and the Farm Workers.
Our task is to build a labor movement for a new generation of workers. We are proud of our past. American unions have built one of the most successful economic, political, and social movements in history, bringing generations of working families prosperity, opportunity, and dignity.
But past successes are not sufficient to meet today’s challenges. The world has changed. A century of progress is under attack. Unrestrained corporate power has set in motion a global race to the bottom—a race dedicated to widening the gap between the rich and those working hard every day, eroding basic wage standards, eroding workplace and social standards, and limiting basic democratic participation of working families.
We must change now to meet the challenges of an economy that is fundamentally different than it was even a decade ago.
Successful UFCW employers come to the negotiating table not to recognize the productivity and loyalty of UFCW members but to pursue aggressive and unrelenting demands for wage and benefit concessions. Last year, our union emerged for one of the longest and most bitter strikes ever in the retail food industry. Tens of thousands of Southern California UFCW members were in the streets fighting to save affordable health care benefits for nearly five months.
Three highly successful UFCW employers—Safeway/Vons, Kroger/Ralphs, and Albertsons—joined forces in an attempt to Wal-Martize the California grocery industry. The Southern California strike is a good illustration of the dynamics of corporate greed in the new economy—and it served as a wake up call for the UFCW. The fact is these highly successful Fortune 50 companies established common goals, a common national bargaining strategy, and common financial resources in an attempt to gut the Southern California contract.
At the conclusion of the strike in late February 2004, I established the UFCW Committee on the Future to examine every aspect of our union with the purpose of building more UFCW power.
The Committee outlined a vision and strategy for the future. At the center of this vision is the dedication of resources to rebuild worker power through national organizing campaigns to increase the number of UFCW members in our core UFCW-represented industries, restore UFCW member strength at the negotiating table through coordinated bargaining of UFCW Local unions with common employers, and gear all political action to the interests of UFCW members.
The UFCW does not, and cannot, operate in a vacuum. To effectively implement our strategic plan, we needed to join with other unions holding a similar vision and beliefs for building worker power. The UFCW took steps to bring the Change to Win Coalition unions together under a common coordinated purpose to improve living standards, ensure affordable health care and renew respect for work and workers. This new UFCW alignment with the like-minded powerful Change to Win Coalition unions—representing more than five million workers—creates enormous opportunities to build UFCW member power and improve working and living standards. Our task is not easy. But our vision is clear. Our resolve is firm. The time is now to bring new hope to working families.
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