UFCW 3000 Member Stories: Kamila Aburkis

Kamila Aburkis

Kamila Aburkis works in the deli at the Kirkland Metropolitan Market and enjoys her work, both preparing delicious food and serving her customers, “Maintaining strong customer relationships is important to me. My goal is to be a friendly face to our customers, so they keep coming back.”

Kamila previous worked at Fred Meyer as a cake decorator, having taken a class in the trade when she previously lived in Utah. Her food experience however, goes far beyond cake decorating:

“I have extensive experience in the kitchen and have had a catering business in the past. I solely cooked for up to 500 people at times for my local mosque. I would make my family recipe of fataha, which is a fried tuna sandwich, using my family recipe. I also would make a stuffed cauliflower (with a ground beef mixture). I was also known for making another family recipe of Malahowta, which is a beef stewed with a lot of parsley. Libyan couscous, Libyan soup, and baklawa.”

“I wrote a cookbook years ago on North African cooking, which has all my family recipes. I copywrited it, but have not published it.”

Wow! Not only are we amazed, but are also hungry and are hoping that someday her cookbook will be published.

Away from work, Kamila enjoys exercising and spending time with her kids and grandkids (who of course she loves cooking for). She raised her children as a single mother after her husband passed away suddenly in 1996 and is very proud of them, “One child has a law degree and one has a medical degree.”

Recently Kamila stepped up to offer aid and solidarity to UFCW 3000 members working at area Macy’s stores who were on strike, by agreeing to appear in a commercial for the contract campaign. Unfortunately, it won’t air, because fortunately Macy’s finally settled the contract with their workers, ending the strike last week, and members just ratified the contract on Monday, January 29th. But her efforts do not go unrecognized! Because it is members like Kamila who truly are the backbone of the labor movement and an inspiration to all workers!

Kamila Burkis, her union rep Rhonda FIsher-Ive and two photographers at the Macy’s commercial shoot