ACME Farms + Kitchen - Contract Ratified!

On Tuesday, July 30, the new three-year union contract for ACME Farms was unanimously approved by all those who attended the vote! Management has been informed that the terms of the new agreement should now be implemented.

Our negotiator will go through the post-vote process of finalizing the document for approval and signing by both parties, then copies will be printed for distribution by our Union Representative Alyssa Conn. Alyssa can be reached at 360-419-4681 should you have any questions.

Sea Wolf Bakers - Progress Is Being Made!

Our bargaining team met with Sea Wolf Bakers' management on Tuesday, July 29. We reached several important Tentative Agreements on:

• Daily overtime hours

• Paid bereavement leave

• Employer IRA contributions

• Minimum report pay in the event we show up to work and are sent home

At this session we also celebrated an exciting stride toward agreement on key economic items! The employer provided their first proposal on digital and cash tips, and our bargaining team gave candid feedback on the importance of implementing tip pooling to keep up with the cost of living. Our team passionately continued the conversation on paid holidays and wage scales to work towards an agreement that is equitable for all staff.

During this session we heard additional feedback from the employer on heat safety. Although the specifics of "extreme heat" were disputed, our team maintained our position on the importance of heat relief breaks.

We are pleased to announce we secured August 12 for another bargaining session as well as the already-scheduled August 26 date, and are looking forward to gaining momentum towards a Fully Recommended Settlement Agreement we can then put to a vote of our fellow Sea Wolf Union members!

Bargaining Team: Frankie Hull, Delivery Driver; Miller Hammond, Barista; Sophia Cerreta, Savory and Bread Departments

Sea Wolf Bakers - Bargaining Update

On Tuesday, July 8, our bargaining team met with management for our tenth bargaining session. We spent much of our day in caucus formulating our latest counterproposal on all things economic, including a wage scale with progression based on length of service, a potential system for tip pooling, and vacation accruals. We presented our counterproposal in the afternoon and had a lengthy discussion with management about where we are apart on the issues.

We also had a frank and open dialogue with them about our desire to address improvements to the existing excessive heat policy. We are happy to report that management seemed to understand this is an extremely important issue to all of us and they said they would return to the table next session with a revamped proposal for us to consider.

While they are still resistant to certain proposals, we feel with all our coworkers standing together in solidarity we can win a contract that we can all be proud of! We will be passing out Union swag for folks to wear at work soon (buttons and bandanas) and will be holding another all-member Contract Action Team meeting to discuss next steps. Please stay tuned for more details from our bargaining team and Union Representative Allison Hanley (who can be reached at 206-436-6586).

We will have our next bargaining session July 29 and are working on setting two more bargaining dates in August.

Bargaining Team: Frankie Hull, Delivery Driver; Sophia Cerreta, Savory & Bread Departments; Miller Hammond, Barista