We've got this 'occupy' website with up-to-date info on my company and our upcoming union contract
Last edited Sat Jan 14, 2012, 11:55 PM - Edit history (1)
from the website: http://occupygiantandsafeway.org/
Local 400 ACT! members are taking it to the digital “streets”
As you’ve likely read by now, we have launched a strong digital presence to assist us during the next few months. We recognize that education and communication are two of our biggest tools in the negotiation process. We also know that our customers who we provide world-class customer service for on a daily basis will support us in our fight.
Please take a minute to visit and “Like” our Facebook page called Occupy Giant and Safeway at: http://www.facebook.com/occupygiantandsafeway and then take a few more moments to share it with your friends.
Our customers support us. Our communities support us. Will you?
My own UFCW branch is Local 27. This is the first time we've had such an organized movement to hold our company accountable. I'm with Giant food, 29 yrs. now. I'm working part-time now, looking for full-time hours. I'm a bit desperate to not lose any more ground, financially.
The nub of our demands is that our foreign owners (Ahold) need to invest the record profits we make every year in their American stores, instead of using the money to prop up their investments overseas.
Here's a few posts which define the demands surrounding our next contract (just to give you an idea what this organizational effort means to our workers):
Jan 11 2012
UFCW’s McNutt: Unions Will Seek Wage Increases In Giant, Safeway Bargaining
As covered in Food World’s January 2012 edition:
“We must get off the defensive and take the offensive because we will not be dictated to by management, we will not tolerate their usual tricks, we will not be lectured to about how our employers somehow can’t compete, and we will not accept the notion that retail workers don’t belong in the middle class.” Those words, uttered by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 (covering the Washington, DC metropolitan area) president Thomas P. McNutt, have set the tone for the bargaining of new contracts for approximately 30,000 clerks and meatcutters employed by Giant/Landover and Safeway in the Baltimore-Washington market.
The current four year pacts are due to expire on April 1 and clearly McNutt and his counterpart at UFCW Local 27 (Baltimore, Eastern Shore), George Murphy, have change on their minds.
McNutt believes that while the current contract, which was negotiated in 2008, provided some meaningful gains for his members (introduction of new tier of hospitalization coverage at affordable rates), certain key issues were left on the table (improving the pension fund liability which affects all parties).
read the article in its entirety here: http://best-met.com/news/ufcws-mcnutt-unions-will-seek-wage-increases-in-giant-safeway-bargaining/
Jan 10 2012
Grocery Workers Mobilize For Giant/Safeway Bargaining
Pledge to Make Employers “Share the Fruits of Our Labors” Launch occupygiantandsafeway.org Website
LANDOVER, Md., January 10 — Demanding that Giant and Safeway “share the fruits of our labors,” Local 400 stewards and activists are mobilizing for the start of bargaining tomorrow on a new contract affecting 17,000 workers in the Washington, DC, area.
With their current contract expiring on March 31, 2012, and with both companies enjoying strong profits and the top two positions in the region’s grocery market, workers are ready to do whatever it takes to gain a new agreement that improves their economic standing and strengthens their health and retirement security.
Calling this “a pivotal moment for each and every one of us,” Local 400 President Tom McNutt told stewards and activists, “our hard work over the past 30 years has built Giant and Safeway into the industry leaders in the Mid-Atlantic. Throughout these three decades, we sacrificed at the bargaining table to make them competitive — and we succeeded.
Calling this “a pivotal moment for each and every one of us,” Local 400 President Tom McNutt told stewards and activists, “our hard work over the past 30 years has built Giant and Safeway into the industry leaders in the Mid-Atlantic. Throughout these three decades, we sacrificed at the bargaining table to make them competitive — and we succeeded.
“They have the ability to pay,” McNutt said. “We don’t have the ability to make concessions. Our families are suffering. Theirs aren’t. We’re working harder than ever and they’re making the Sheriff of Nottingham look like a Saint. So we will work 24/7 to improve our contract — to make sure they share the fruits of our labor — or they may find their fruit rotting and unsold. That’s not a threat. It’s a statement of fact."
See the full release here: Seminar Press Release: http://occupygiantandsafeway.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/seminar_release.pdf
To see President Tom McNutt’s speech delivered on January 5, 2012: Download the full speech here: http://occupygiantandsafeway.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/stewards-seminar-speech-1-5-2012.pdf
Personal hat-tip to OWS for the obvious inspiration for this effort by our union. Please check back in with us over the next months and give us whatever support you can. Thanks for reading!
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