Duty Free Americas - Members Vote Unanimously to Ratify New Contract

On Monday, August 11, members at Duty Free Americas voted unanimously to ratify their new contract!

Some highlights of what members have won are increased annual wage increases, increased PIC premium, better union access, a new additional floating holiday, union leave, the right to wear jeans, improved PTO payout, and a longevity bonus at 10 years of service.

Our bargaining team member Sara McCrae and many in the bargaining unit are most excited about the new floating holiday and are committed to making sure everybody uses both their floating holidays this year.

Please reach out to your Union Representative Allison Hanley at 206-436-6586 with any questions or concerns.

Bargaining Team: Sara McCrae

Card Kingdom Roundtables: A Win from Our Labor Management Committee (LMC)!

For weeks, our LMC members collected survey responses about how poor communication and unclear expectations lead to stress and poor morale at Card Kingdom. On June 20, our Card Kingdom LMC met with management to discuss an agenda of workplace issues we compiled from your survey responses. At the end of the meeting, our committee delivered a compilation of powerful statements with a request attached: Card Kingdom management needs to host consistent roundtables with us to discuss issues, questions, concerns, and to repair morale and respect. The committee thoughtfully presented this letter of your statements and asked to meet again to hear their response.

As a result, Card Kingdom management met our demands by agreeing to host twice weekly roundtables with union members, management, and VP representatives!

This is a win we all can celebrate! We need to continue organizing together to use our powerful worker-led union at Card Kingdom where all of our voices can be heard. Roundtables are our space to organize, communicate openly, and give feedback with actionable results.

"Card Kingdom is at its best when everyone is able to come to work and do our best to both help each other out and help meet customer commitments with the trust that we know what's expected, why, and how to get there.... We also, crucially, want to be considered part of the community around the campfire, not just fuel to be burned."

— Labor Management Committee Letter excerpt

If you have any questions about upcoming roundtable meetings, please reach out to your stewards for support or call your representative Allison Hanley at (206) 436-6586.

Do you want to become a workplace leader, get involved in our Labor Management Committee, or become a shop steward? Reach out to one of your committee members or Allison Hanley to get involved!

Your Labor Management Committee: John Proudfoot, Aaron Sargent, Natalie Roggenbuck, and August Jones

Duty Free America - We Reached An Agreement! Vote On August 11!

After two bargaining sessions, we are proud to announce that we have reached a tentative agreement with Duty Free America management!

From the beginning, our goal was clear: to improve compensation, recognize your years of service, and build a workplace culture that supports and retains staff. Our collective efforts at the bargaining table have secured significant improvements.

Some of the highlights of the agreement we reached include:

• Increased PIC premium

• Increase to annual wage increases for all classifications

• Improved union access language

• New additional floating holiday

• New union leave language

• Longevity bonus after 10 years of service

• Improved PTO payout language

• Improved dress code

• Improvements to scheduling language

• Increased hire-in rate

Vote on Tentative Agreement
August 11
7:00 AM - 9:00 AM
2:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Breakroom

The vote will be in-person. UFCW 3000 members in good standing are encouraged to drop-in to a vote meeting, read the tentative agreement, ask questions, and cast their vote. You can sign up to be a union member on the day of our vote or by calling Membership Services at 1-866-210-3000 prior to the vote.

Your bargaining team recommends a "YES" vote!

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