WATCH: Winning Better Grocery Store Staffing at the Bargaining Table
/Last week, our union and Teamsters 38 held a webinar to discuss our proposals to ensure better staffing at grocery stores across the region.
Read More“They gave us next to nothing, so we are giving them nothing but pickets!” – Emily Hunter
Following the employer’s unacceptable conduct during our previous bargaining session, and the significant distance remaining between the parties, our Union Bargaining Team asked the employer if they would agree to request assistance from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). The employer agreed, and an FMCS mediator was available to join us beginning with this session.
The time has come to make your voices heard! We encourage all Radiant Care workers to attend our scheduled vote meeting to review the full details of our new tentative agreement, ask questions, and cast your ballot!
We still have not gotten wages back from management, though we did discuss a few of the economic sections of our contract: namely after receiving one of the aforementioned underwhelming counterproposals regarding a memorandum of understanding for RNs who perform SANE exams. Which the Employer returned the same iteration of the Memorandum of Understanding proposal they brought to us more than one year ago; which only speaks to the examination itself.
As wildfires rip through our region and smoke chokes the air, UFCW 3000 members, families, and communities face evacuations, and loss of homes and livelihoods.
Some workers could experience partial or total work closures creating difficult circumstances surrounding hours, pay, and life stability
As we navigate this emergency, please remember the union and community resources that can help. Also, please review important information below that can help keep you safe and enforce your rights at work.
We are scheduling a vote on whether to accept or reject an LOU (Letter of Understanding) that would change the language of Article 3.4 in our contract. This is regarding the pay rate for working on Saturday and Sunday.
We asked Management about their low wage proposals for 2027 and 2028. They responded that they weren’t focusing on cost-of-living increases and cited that people want to work at this destination employer because it has such a good culture. What do you think?
The rest of the day built off of that momentum and we were able to secure an agreement with the Employer that is fully recommended by our Union Bargaining Team! This offer includes a 10.5% wage increase over the life of the contract as well as increases and expansions to multiple premium pay options! We also were able to secure improvements to our scheduling language, retroactive pay, and compensation for those who are at the top of the scale.
“We had a productive bargaining meeting and reached several tentative agreements, which is an encouraging sign of the progress we’re making together. While we still have work to do on the non-economic items, the discussion remained constructive. We are hopeful that we will continue building on this momentum and make further progress at our next bargaining session.” – Clari Ramos, Nutrition Pharmacist
Yesterday we met with the Employer for the second time. It was their turn to get back to us on our proposals. After their presentation our team worked the rest of the afternoon to respond to their proposals. See the tentative agreements (TAs) we've reached so far (please keep in mind that nothing is final until all members vote and approved the Contract).
Our member-led Bargaining Team met with representatives from First and Goal on Wednesday, July 22, to continue negotiations for our first union contract.
We are set to meet the Employer again on August 6 and 27. You must become part of this process and ensure that your committee gets the strength and stamina to finish this contract negotiation with the best outcome possible regardless of the hurdles that they are facing at the table.
We believe outsourcing our union jobs to robots will erode our unity in the worksite, reduce available hours for those who need them to pay the rent, and threaten the stability of our benefits.
Last Friday we met with the Employer for the first time. The Employer presented their initial set of non-economic proposals. Our Bargaining Committee studied their proposals, formulated counterproposals, and introduced an additional non-economic set of proposals.
On Monday, July 20, following a series of well-attended vote meetings, our MultiCare Capital Medical Center Professionals Bargaining Team is overjoyed to announce that our First Ever Union Contract has been ratified!
Through perseverance, dedication, and solidarity, we have transformed MultiCare Capital Medical Center and are proudly UNION REPRESENTED PROFESSIONALS!
We started our sixth day of union contract negotiations with proposals in our court, which we began with a new cadence that we thought a might help our discussions get across and reach the Employer. While we did reach a few new Tentative Agreements (a three-year duration on our contract, clarity around suggesting new premium-eligible certifications through Labor Management Committee, and the removal of some old language referencing an effective date from three years in the past…), I’m sure you can imagine, these aren’t the topics of discussion which our Bargaining Team and coworkers at SJMC care the most about.
We now have contract that gives us a stronger voice on the job, and we can now stand together with our Union siblings from Spokane in our next bargaining cycle.
Our new Union contract includes several workplace protections, as well as increased wages, premium wages, a union wage scale with wage escalators between each step of the scale, a pension, and stronger safety language! All of those provisions go into effect immediately.
On July 17, workers at Payless Foods in Freeland voted and overwhelmingly ratified our new Grocery and Meat Contracts! Our member led Bargaining Team negotiated a two year contract that gets us back to the table sooner to keep ahead of inflation.
Our Union Bargaining Team met with the Employer again on July 16, to continue negotiations for our next Union contract. Given the Employer’s conduct during recent sessions, we did not expect significant progress. Unfortunately, we were proven right.
Last week, our union and Teamsters 38 held a webinar to discuss our proposals to ensure better staffing at grocery stores across the region.
Read More
RIGHT TO BETTER WAGES: We have a right to fair pay so we can afford food, clothing, a place to live, and the other necessities we need to live our lives and support our families. Better wages mean that current workers can be given the opportunity to move into higher paying jobs and have their time with the company recognized.
RIGHT TO LIFE OUTSIDE WORK: We have a right to a life outside of work including two dependable days a week for ourselves, our families, our places of worship, and our communities.
RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE: We have a right to an affordable health care plan that helps us stay well and takes care of us when we are ill.
RIGHT TO RETIREMENT: We have a right to a dependable pension so we can retire with dignity.
RIGHT TO PAID SICK DAYS: We have a right to paid sick days when we are sick so we can stay at home, get well and contribute to a healthy food supply. Nobody should have to choose between staying home and caring for themselves or a sick family member and paying the rent.
RIGHT TO JOB SECURITY: We have a right to protection against unjust firing or demotion, and unfair discipline.
RIGHT TO SAFE WORKPLACES: We have a right to decent and safe working conditions. This includes basic humane treatment including rest breaks and worker safety protections.
RIGHT TO A VOICE ON THE JOB: We have a right to a voice in the workplace when we choose to have a union, without any interference by our employers.
RIGHT TO HEALTHY FOOD: Grocery workers and our customers have a right to safe and healthy food in the stores where we work and shop.
RIGHT TO MORE HOURS: We have a right to a dependable number of hours of work each week so that we can predict our paycheck, manage our household budgets, and be able to pay our bills.
UFCW 21 President Faye Guenther & Secretary-Treasurer Joe Mizrahi interviews retiring Grays Harbor Hospital member leader John Warring and former UFCW 21 Secretary-Treasurer Diane Zahn about their memories in the labor movement and how to strengthen our union in the future.
Read MoreWe are the Union. The members of UFCW 3000 are over 50,000 members working in grocery, retail, health care, meat packing, cannabis, & other industries across Washington state, north-east Oregon, and northern Idaho. UFCW 3000 is a chartered member of UFCW International with over 1.4 million workers in North America.
To build a powerful Union that fights for economic, political and social justice in our workplaces and in our communities.
Jenny C., a transporter at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, knows what it looks like when management hopes a problem will just go away.
Jenny has watched the facility's transport elevators malfunction for more than a year, filing report after report after each incident she witnessed. Supervisors did not appear to take these complaints seriously.
Fresenius workers can see in Trevino’s story what solidarity looks like in action: Checking your check, speaking up when something's wrong, and stepping up to lead when your coworkers need you.