A Lunds & Byerly’s worker hands out samples at the deli counter inside the downtown St. Paul store.
Contract talks between east-metro grocers and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1189 are off to an encouraging start.
Within weeks of opening negotiations, workers at two retail chains have reached tentative agreements that include the largest wage increases ever for their bargaining units.
Local 1189 announced a tentative contract agreement covering workers at five east metro Lunds & Byerly’s locations March 14. Within a week, the union had another agreement covering workers at six Kowalski’s stores.
Both units were scheduled to take ratification votes in early April, as negotiations continued on contracts covering workers at three other chains: UNFI-owned Cub Foods, Jerry’s and Jerry’s Cub, and Festival Foods.
The first two settlements have set a high bar, and members of the worker-led bargaining teams credited a pro-labor climate, both locally and nationally, with giving them momentum to win big at the bargaining table.
“You see the headlines with the teachers and what’s happened with the auto industry,” Lunds & Byerly’s worker Zach Boling Green said. “Unions are kind of gaining traction in a way I haven’t seen before – and even the more veteran members haven’t seen before. I think that set the stage for this contract.”
Local 1189 members also pointed to the aggressive contract campaign taken on by grocery workers in their sibling local, Minneapolis-based UFCW Local 663, last year. It included several strike votes and informational picketing – and led to historic gains in their contracts.
Claire Van den Berghe, Local 1189’s organizing director, said it was clear that Kowalski’s and Lunds & Bylerly’s were not eager for another round of contentious bargaining, and they could see that Local 1189 members were mobilizing for a fight.
“We’ve been doing a lot of work to prepare for bargaining,” she said. “The employers have clearly noticed, and I think they are anxious about having another big fight. So to head it off, they actually came with good proposals.
“We had built strong committees because we were expecting to have a big fight. They kind of pulled the rug out from under us.”
Gains in the new contracts include increased opportunities for full-time work, protections for meatcutters’ jobs, new language protecting workers from having to travel in dangerous weather and industry-leading wage increases.
Lunds & Byerly’s full-time workers will earn $4.50 per hour more by the end of the two-year contract, $3.50 for part-timers. At Kowalski’s full-time workers will se a $3.75 raise, $2.50 for part-timers.
The pacts also include new safety language, setting minimum staffing on night shifts and, for Lunds workers, creating a new, first-in-the-nation process to develop policies covering violent events in their stores – from prevention and response to accommodations for workers who experience a violent event.
“After events in Buffalo and El Paso, we know that grocery and retail workers, unfortunately, are sometime targets for this kind of violence,” Boling Green said. “We just wanted to ensure the union is present in those discussions around procedures and training.
“Whenever we can have a hand in those things, I think workers stand to benefit.”
– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor
Union Advocate 