Other Industries
The UFCW also represents workers in several other industries, including: |
A growing number of public employees are choosing a voice on the job through UFCW representation. With large budget deficits looming, state and local governments are cutting back funding, putting effective and efficient public service at risk.
Workers in the public sector are recognizing more and more that the strength of the UFCW's influence in the legislative and political arenas can protect public service employees and improve wages, benefits, and working conditions.
"Because public employees often do not have the right to strike, putting pressure on our political leaders is essential," explains Dick Courtney, Union Representative and Legislative Director for Springfield, Mass., Local 1459. "We have excellent contracts because 1459 members hold lawmakers accountable."
Local 1459 is a great example of how the union's political strength pays off for its members. The good relationship between school committees and Local 1459 has made it so that businesses that bid on school contracts must recognize the union contract, which secures good wages and benefits for workers. In addition, Local 1459 has succeeded in creating a union-friendly environment with the passage of resolutions in many areas that distinguish cities as "union cities."
 |
Health care professions are being transformed into an industry-like every other industry-that is production oriented and profit driven. The care is being squeezed out of the health care. HMO's, managed care, and mega-mergers are pushing profits over quality care. Health care businesses are downsizing staff, contracting out staff, replacing highly skilled professionals with less skilled substitutes, and increasing caregiver responsibilities without the adequate training or increased compensation. This is leaving our health care system understaffed, overwhelmed, and with compromised care.
Meanwhile, compensation for hospital executives is rising three times the rate for nurses. For example, a marketing manager makes more than a nursing director. Nursing home caregivers are struggling on poverty level wages and inadequate benefits. As a result, health care professionals are caring for more patients with less support and fewer resources.
The UFCW Commitment
The UFCW is a community-based union. We are in every neighborhood. Our health care members are part of the community and part of the family. UFCW caregivers reach and touch our lives at the most important moments—they are the first person we see at birth and the last person we see when we die. The UFCW cares for caregivers. We are the voice of care.
Right now the UFCW represents more than 100,000 working men and women in the health care profession throughout North America. Through our union, we have already improved safety in the workplace, restructured staffing and compensation levels, and just recently won an agreement with an employer that gives the caregivers the right to sue the employer if staffing levels get too low. In addition, health care workers who have joined together through the UFCW on average, earn more than non-union workers. For example, an organized registered nurse makes 10 percent more than a non-union nurse, unionized aides and orderlies earn 50 percent more than non-union aides and orderlies.
Through union representation, health care workers can improve wages, expand benefits (including pensions), foster professional development, and finally, put the "care" back into the health care industry.
 |
 |
