Still at It, A Long Way to Go

We had two days of contract negotiations this week – the last week before many contract expirations. Along those lines we were able to come to an agreement with the employers to extend our contracts with protections for retro-compensation. 

It remains clear to our Union Member Bargaining Team that we need to make some significant progress on many issues in our 2019 negotiations including higher wages. We need to continue to work on issues that are connected to the quality of our jobs and often are closely related to our pay – issues like; scheduling, staffing, training, and safety.

Over the last two days we traded proposals with the employers as follow up on our earlier round of safety proposals. While we made some progress on this front, we have a long way to go to adequately address safety issues in our stores.

The Union Bargaining Team also presented evidence in support of our scheduling proposals, including:

• More advanced notice —two weeks

• Access to more hours—before our employers hire new staff, those hours should go to us

• More control over our schedules—we should be able to choose our shifts

We know these systems already work in many of our stores. Meat departments have daily seniority and many members in our union have the ability to select their own schedules. We proposed that the employers take the systems we already have that are working well and expand them to everyone.

We made it clear to the employers: we passed our scheduling law in Seattle and we are prepared to pass it statewide unless they are willing to come to the table with solutions.

Take Action:

• Make sure you and your co-workers have downloaded the UFCW 21 app.

• As break actions wrap up, we are starting a new round of button up actions

  Next Bargaining dates May 20 & 21

CLICK TO SEE A FULL SCHEDULE OF MAY CONTRACT ACTION TEAM MEETINGS

YOUR GROCERY STORE BARGAINING TEAM:

Amy Dayley Angell, QFC #891 (Ballard), Front End Checker

Cassy Wolle, Fred Meyer - Port Orchard #655 (Grocery), CCK Checker

Scott Shiflett, QFC #838 (Inglewood), Meat Cutter

Christina Harris, Fred Meyer - Lake City #179 (Grocery), Bakery Clerk

Cliff Powers, Safeway #402 (Oak Harbor), Produce Clerk

Eleanor Knight, Albertsons #4483 (Auburn), 4th PIC

Irene Garcia, Fred Meyer - Auburn #19 (Retail), Home Clerk

Jeannette Randall, Safeway #1923 (Roxbury), Front End Checker

Jeff Smith, Fred Meyer - Snohomish #681 (Retail), Non-food receiving Clerk

J'Nee DeLancey, Town & Country #211 (Ballard), Beer/Wine Manager

Jordan Washington, QFC #803 (Meridian), Starbucks

Kyong Barry, Albertsons #483 (S Auburn), Front End Supervisor

Maggie Breshears, Fred Meyer - Greenwood #122 (Grocery), Personal Shopper

Maroot Nanakul, Safeway #464 (Bear Creek), Front End Manager

Michaela Strain, QFC #819 (Bothell), Meat Wrapper

Paul Ames Reinhold, Metropolitan Market #157 (Uptown), Cheese Kiosk Clerk

Richard Waits, Haggen #15 (Burlington), Deli Clerk

Robin Hillistad, QFC #858 (N Seattle), HR Specialist

Sam Dancy, QFC #825 (Westwood Village), Front End Supervisor

Sue Wilmot, Safeway #1252 (Bainbridge Island), Front End Checker

Wendy Garrett-Drake, Albertsons #469 (Mukilteo), Personnel Coordinator/Bookkeeper

Wil Peterson, Fred Meyer - Everett #95 (Grocery), CCK Checker

Todd Crosby, Organizing Director, UFCW International

Faye Guenther, Acting President, UFCW 21

Steve Chandler, Principal Officer Teamsters 38

Joe Mizrahi, Staff Director, UFCW 21

Mia Contreras, Executive Vice President, UFCW 21

Tammi Brady, Recording Secretary, Teamsters 38

Samantha Kantak, Executive Assistant, Teamsters 38

Jim McGuinness, Attorney, UFCW 21 and Teamsters 38