Bakery Workers are taking their contract fight to UNFI Cub Foods’ customers

March 17, 2022 by

Flyering outside the Har Mar Cub Foods (L to R): BCTGM Local 22 Secretary-Treasurer James Rutten, St. Paul Regional Labor Federation President Kera Peterson, Local 22 President Wally Borgan and retired Local 22 President Bruce Peglow.

If you’d love to shop a Cub that isn’t trying to strip its bakers of their union health and pension benefits, then Bakery Workers Local 22 has a list of stores for you.

The Twin Cities-based has distributed flyers outside dozens of Cub Foods stores owned by United Natural Foods Incorporated (UNFI) in the Twin Cities area over the last two weeks. Local 22 represents 240 bakery workers at 44 UNFI-owned Cub Foods stores.

“We’re not calling for a boycott, but some people we talk to don’t like the news we’re giving them,” Local 22 President Wally Borgan said outside the Har Mar Cub Foods in Roseville yesterday. “So we made a list to make it easy for them to find an alternative shopping site.”

The news bakery workers are giving Cub customers is that UNFI has been demanding, since contract negotiations began last fall, that Local 22 members give up their longstanding, hard-fought health care and pension benefits.

“We’re not asking for treasure chests of gold, we just want a fair contract and fair pay increases,” Borgan said.

The union-sponsored health care plan currently in Local 22’s contract covers 100% of expenses after the deductible, and Borgan said out-of-pocket costs are capped at $1,200 per year for workers who utilize a health savings account. UNFI wants bakers to switch to its corporate plan, which caps costs at $12,000 per year and requires workers to cover 20% of premiums, Borgan said.

The union’s pension fund, meanwhile, is fully funded, and Borgan said other Local 22 employers have offered to increase their contributions to the pension in recent negotiations, looking to retain and attract workers during a labor shortage.

Thirty-five members of Local 22 left UNFI Cub stores between October and December 2021, as UNFI’s attempt to strip members of their accrued vacation time set an ominous tone before bargaining even began.

Borgan said vacation hours have been restored for most workers in bargaining, but the early attack prompted Local 22 to ask its international union — the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) — to take the lead in bargaining with UNFI.

“We don’t trust this employer,” Borgan said. “We used to be able to, but it was a different environment back then.”

This is the first round of contract negotiations since UNFI acquired Supervalu in 2018. Not all Cub Foods stores are owned by UNFI, which is why Local 22 is circulating a list of stores that are “not trying to negatively impact workers’ livelihoods,” according to the flyer.

The two sides are scheduled to return to the bargaining table in April.

Local 22 is asking supporters to sign a petition calling on UNFI to negotiate a fair contract with its Cub Foods workers.

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Don’t be fooled by AT&T’s authorized retailers, CWA members warn

December 17, 2021 by

Union members and supporters demonstrate outside the AT&T authorized retailer in Roseville, where CWA members used to work.

After a push from union members in Minnesota, the Communications Workers of America is stepping up its campaign to fight back against job cuts and union busting at AT&T retail stores nationwide, asking supporters to do business with stores that employ CWA members.

AT&T workers were in the streets outside dozens of “AT&T authorized retailers” across the country last weekend, including stores in St. Cloud and Roseville. The actions drew attention to the company’s recent move convert corporate-owned stores, staffed by CWA members, to third-party dealers.

That’s union-busting, said Kieran Knutson, president of CWA Local 7250, which represents AT&T wireless sales reps, technicians and call-center employees in Minnesota.

“It’s an attack not just on our union and on the working conditions in those stores, but also on the communities because there are less union jobs available,” Knutson said during a protest Saturday outside the authorized retailer in Roseville. “We’re not going to let them off the hook for that.”

AT&T has closed or converted more than 650 corporate-owned stores in the last two years, including 12 of 36 stores in Minnesota. The cuts have come despite AT&T’s promise that then-President Trump’s 2017 tax cut, which put billions into the company’s coffers, would create new jobs.

Local 7250 authored a resolution, passed by the CWA at its international convention in October, calling for the day of action against AT&T’s job cuts, held Saturday during the holiday shopping season.

The union also has launched a campaign to help AT&T customers tell the difference between union and non-union stores, which look alike except for a small sign on the front indicating which are authorized retailers.

Union stores in the east metro include Burnsville, Maplewood, St. Paul (Highland Park) and Woodbury. Find a complete list of union stores nationwide at CWA.org/ATTstore.

Union members and supporters all but shut down the AT&T authorized retailer in Roseville for nearly two hours Saturday, marching outside the storefront with signs and distributing fliers in the parking lot.

The store used to be staffed by union members, Knutson said, but recently closed and reopened as an authorized retailer owned by Prime Communications. That company’s leadership includes several former AT&T executives.

“The sole purpose of Prime Communications is to franchise AT&T retail stores, to turn them from union into non-union stores,” Knutson said. “It’s not like they also franchise Verizon; they are purely a creation for union-busting.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , ,

Fair State, Schell’s brew together to celebrate solidarity

March 5, 2021 by

Fair State Brewing’s Union Lager is moving quickly in the taproom and in liquor stores – and in this reporter’s refrigerator, too.

Minnesota’s oldest and newest union breweries have teamed up to craft a beer celebrating solidarity in the workplace.

Union Lager is a collaborative brew by Fair State in the Twin Cities, where workers formed a union with UNITE HERE Local 17 last summer, and August Schell in New Ulm, where union members have been brewing beer since the 1930s. They currently are represented by the Steelworkers union.

The beer is crisp and moderately hoppy – a “crusher,” Fair State says on its website. Local 17 member Ian Sutherland, who uses plural pronouns, said the Union Lager is moving steadily in Fair State’s northeast Minneapolis taproom, where they work behind the bar.

“It’s beautiful,” Sutherland added. “It’s a good blend of hoppy and malty. It has a little of the hard-water profile, a little minerally. It’s a very good sessionable lager.”

Crafting lagers is a passion shared by the brewers and friends behind the collaboration, Fair State’s Niko Tonks and Schell’s Jace Marti.

When he saw the news Fair State workers had unionized last September, Marti quickly fired off a text message to Tonks. “I said congratulations on being unionized,” Marti said. “Let’s do a collaboration.”

It’s not often management celebrates its workers’ decision to form a union, let alone markets a new product around the news. But Fair State’s historic union drive was unique from the start.

Organizing was already afoot when Sutherland began bartending in June of last year. Within three months, enough workers at the taproom and Fair State’s St. Paul brewery were on board to petition management for voluntary recognition of their union, which they did the morning after Labor Day.

“Our brewer is kind of a neighborhood brewery now, but it’s starting to do some national distribution,” Sutherland said. “Our thinking was maybe it was time to cement some power in a union as we start to make the trek toward a larger-scale brewery.”

Fair State’s chief executive, Evan Sallee, immediately embraced the idea, Sutherland said. A day later, after consulting with the board of member-owners, Sallee celebrated Fair State becoming the nation’s first unionized microbrewery in an open letter on the cooperative’s website.

Sutherland said workers have been pleasantly surprised to see their union “become so integral” to Fair State’s identity. “It’s a cool thing that cements our place in the workplace,” they said.

Even better, Fair State has backed up its branding both at the table and on the shop floor.

Progress toward a first contract covering the union’s 20-plus members has been steady. Sutherland credited Local 17 Secretary-Treasurer Sheigh Freeberg with “playing the role of advocate for us and educator for both sides” as Fair State workers and managers familiarize themselves with the process.

The question everyone is trying to answer in bargaining, Sutherland said, is how to balance “the nimbleness required of a craft brewery” with a union contract.

“That’s the challenge, but it’s definitely headed in a direction that feels really healthy,” Sutherland added. “People are realizing if you want something to change, we have real power to try to make that happen.”

Whether the Union Lager will be available for a toast to Fair State workers’ first contract, whenever it’s settled, remains to be seen.

The two breweries developed their own batches and labels for the beer. Fair State’s product hit shelves first, and Tonks, Fair State’s founding brewer, said liquor stores snatched up their local distributor’s allotment in about a week.

“That’s fast,” Tonks laughed. “Response has been strong, and it’s pretty much gone.”

Fortunately for anyone who missed out, Schell’s batch should be ready for sale sometime this month. And Tonks said both brewers are looking for an excuse – contract ratification, perhaps? – to brew it again.

Marti said he isn’t surprised by the Union Lager’s success. The collaboration seemed to him charmed from Day 1, when he and Tonks decided to take their inspiration from the Westphalian Pale Lager, a German beer made famous by the now-defunct Dortmunder Union Brewery.

“It was known as a hard-working beer, a blue-collar drinking beer,” Marti said. “It all fit perfectly.”

*****

Want to talk about organizing your workplace with someone who’s done it recently? Sutherland and other Fair State unionists welcome the opportunity! Get ahold of them at fairstateunion [at] gmail [dot] com.

Filed Under: Community, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Grocery workers ask you to #ShopSmart during pandemic

April 27, 2020 by

Members of UFCW Local 1189 are keeping food and critical supplies on the shelves of local grocery stores, but they’re asking for our help keeping themselves – and all of us – healthy.

Going grocery shopping? Retail workers have a few polite requests for your consideration.

Wear a mask if you have one. Go alone if you can. Keep six feet between you and others in the store. And don’t leave trash – especially not gloves or tissues – on the floor.

In other words, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1189 President Jennifer Christensen said, “shop smart” until the pandemic is over – please and thank you.

“It’s about keeping yourself safe, keeping the workers safe and keeping the community safe,” said Christensen, whose union represents workers at Cub Foods, Jerry’s, Kowalskis, Lunds and Byerlys, Festival, Cooper’s, Oxendales and other union grocers in the east-metro area.

“It’s about all of us doing the right thing to ensure that everybody has safe access to food.”

Bakery Workers (BCTGM) Local 22 represents people working inside many of the same stores. Union President Wally Borgen said most employers have made unions aware of management’s plans for dealing with potential exposure to COVID-19, with many committed to a full facility shutdown for deep cleaning.

To prevent that from happening, employers are taking extreme precautions, Borgen added.

“Most companies are following a very diligent sanitizing plan, many with dedicated employees who simply spend the entire day sanitizing and re-sanitizing any surface that is touched frequently,” he said. “Most of them are also enforcing the 20-second hand washing rule, some literally observing with stop watches and issuing discipline to employees who don’t do a good enough job.”

So far, it’s worked well.

Minnesota has avoided the fate of areas forced to limit the number of customers allowed into the store at one time, or consider delivery-only options. And union members, many of whom are earning bonus “appreciation pay” during the pandemic, want to keep it that way.

“Our members are going to work, and I know they’re happy to be working, proud to be working,” Christensen said. “And they want to stay working, but that means they need to stay healthy.”

The UFCW’s international union launched the #ShopSmart campaign on social media and other channels earlier this month after a poll of some 5,000 members found 85% said customers are not practicing social distancing, 62% said customers are blaming employees for shortages and 43% reported instances of customers shouting at employees

“We really are all in this together,” Christensen said. “It’s a people business, and it’s hard to get away from people in these stores. They weren’t built for social distancing. But you can get six feet apart if you try, and that’s what we’re asking.”

As of last week’s print deadline, no UFCW Local 1189 grocery workers had tested positive for COVID-19, nor had any member of BCTGM Local 22.

 

Filed Under: Organizing, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Senator’s new State Fair booth – like most buildings on the fairgrounds – is union built

August 27, 2018 by

Putting up Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s booth on the State Fairgrounds is an annual tradition for the St. Paul Building and Construction Trades Council, but it isn’t the only structure on the fairgrounds built by union members – far from it, in fact.

“A majority of the building on the grounds were built union, going all the way back to the 1950s,” Don Mullin, the council’s executive secretary, said. “That continues today, whether it’s putting up new facilities or maintaining the old ones.

“It’s a great thing for tradespeople to be able to come out with their families to the fair and be able to show them something we build. It’s like we say, we’re proud to build St. Paul.”

St. Paul Building Trades volunteers on hand to help frame Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s new state fair booth included, L to R, (back) Ryan Ponthan, Rob Busch, Mick Christy and Aaron Hill of the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters, and (front) Joe Navejas, Laborers Local 563; Tim House, Plasterers Local 265; Brian Gullickson, Cement Masons 633.
Brian Gullickson (front) of Cement Masons Local 633 and Joe Navejas of Laborers Local 563 test the length of a crossbeam.
Ryan Ponthan
Ryan Ponthan (top) consults with Mick Christy, a fellow member of the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters.
Volunteers from IUPAT District Council 82 pose for a photo with the finished project.
Volunteers from the Painters union.

This year Klobuchar’s campaign – at the suggestion of union tradespeople – purchased materials for a new, safer, state-of-the-art structure.

To ensure the initial installation went right, the council brought together volunteers from several of its member unions Aug. 15. Among them were Carpenters Local 322, Cement Masons Local 633, Electrical Workers Local 110, Laborers Local 563, Painters District Council 82, Plasterers Local 265, Plumbers Local 34 and Roofers Local 96.

“It’s a great opportunity for the Building Trades to showcase the work that we do, and to make sure Sen. Klobuchar has a great place to showcase the work she does for Minnesota,” Mullin said.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , ,

Nationwide campaign to fight cancer launches at Twin Cities union grocers

March 16, 2018 by

Union retail workers are teaming up with area grocers and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society this month to fight cancer, forging a bond they hope will catch on nationwide.

The Labor Against Cancer campaign will encourage customers at several union grocery stores to donate $1 or more at checkout, with proceeds supporting cancer research and copay support. The campaign runs from St. Patrick’s Day through March 31.

The United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents retail workers nationwide, has a 36-year relationship with the LLS, and union members have raised over $86 million for the organization over that time.

But the new campaign, piloted by UFCW locals 1189 and 653, brings union employers and their customers into the fold, with hopes of expanding the fundraising drive’s public profile – and improving its results.

“What we realized is that we had a huge opportunity to engage not only our union friends but their employers, their retailers to be a part of a movement to end blood cancer,” Kay Skonieczny, a vice president at LLS, said. “UFCW is powering our movement, and we’re inviting unions of all types to join us.”

UFCW Local 1189 President Jennifer Christensen and member Dean Nelson of South St. Paul join a Labor Against Cancer kickoff event.

Jennifer Christensen, president of St. Paul-based UFCW Local 1189, credited participating employers for “taking the big leap to work with us” on the campaign.

Blood cancer survivors from both local unions attended a campaign kickoff event at the LLS chapter’s Minneapolis offices Thursday. Dean Nelson, a meat cutter in the Midway Cub Foods, said his recovery from chronic myeloid leukemia diagnosis was “a walk in the park” thanks to lifesaving medication discovered as a result of LLS-funded research.

And the medication was affordable, Nelson added, because of his union-negotiated health insurance. He pays $15 per paycheck toward premiums and a $600 copay on medication that costs $176,000 per year.

“Collective bargaining is why I am where I am today,” Nelson said. “If I worked for Target, if I worked for Wal-Mart, they would have dumped me into public assistance.”

Raising awareness of union retailers, Christensen said, is an added bonus of the Labor Against Cancer campaign. “I think it’s important that we set our union employers apart from some of the competition, in the way that they support the folks that work there,” she said.

Participating retailers in the East Metro include Cub Foods, Jerry’s, Lunds and Byerlys, and Oxendales. [Click for participating sites in the East Metro and West Metro.]

“You’re going to hear a lot about Labor Against Cancer in the future,” Skonieczny said. “You can all know that it started right here in Minnesota.”

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Longtime union mailing house in Roseville closes shop

February 12, 2018 by

Accurate Mailing’s longtime operator John Vermeer prepared the Union Advocate’s February edition for mailing with help from April O’Keeffe (L) and Andrea Adair.

Accurate Mailing closed shop for good last week after more than 25 years in business. It was one of the few Twin Cities mailing houses with a union bug.

Accurate’s last job: labeling, sorting and preparing 30,000 copies of The Saint Paul Union Advocate for delivery by the U.S. Postal Service.

Owner-operator John Vermeer and two crewmembers, Andrea Adair and April O’Keeffe, handled the job Feb. 1, their work interrupted occasionally by people hauling equipment and machinery out of the Roseville shop.

Vermeer, a longtime member of Teamsters Local 120, opened Accurate Mailing as a union shop in 1992, after quitting his job at Midwest Printing. Accurate specialized in folding, inserting, addressing, tabbing and other mail-related tasks, but among longtime clients and Postal Service employees, Accurate was best known for its friendly and reliable service.

“We know what we do, and we tried to give the customer as good of service as we could because without that, you don’t have anything,” Vermeer said.

Vermeer’s decision to close shop came after Accurate’s parent company was purchased by multinational printing giant Quebecor, a company that buys shops “for the work, but not the employees,” Vermeer said. “They shut us down.”

Upon learning Accurate was closing, Vermeer’s connections at the Postal Service surprised him with a bottle of Remy Martin as a token of their appreciation for his patience and professionalism over the years.

“I never gave them a hard time, and I always enjoyed working with them,” he said. “They were all pleasant people.”

Now, Vermeer heads into “total retirement,” he said. His only plans? Travel, enjoy life and try cognac for the first time.

“It was enjoyable working with different people, different unions,” he said. “I’m going to miss all the people I’d see and work with.”

Find a list of union printing and mailing shops at http://www.mnaflcio.org.

Filed Under: Community Tagged With: , , , ,

Stamp Out Hunger with union-made products

May 10, 2017 by

Letter Carriers nationwide will help restock food shelves in their local communities May 13 during the annual Stamp Out Hunger food drive. It’s the largest one-day food drive in the country –and a shining example of the many ways union members give back to their communities every day.

So why not double the impact of your donation this year by filling the bag – or bags – left near your mailbox with union-made products?

The AFL-CIO’s Union Label and Service Trades Department has compiled a list of non-perishable foods packaged or processed by union members and widely available in Cub Foods, Rainbow, Lunds and Byerly’s, Cooper’s and other union grocery scores.

Here’s a sampling of the items:

• Soups & Sauces: Campbell’s, Marie Callender’s, College Inn, Healthy Choice, Hunt’s pizza sauce, Classico pasta sauces and Prego Italian sauces.

• Beverages: V-8, Gatorade and Arizona iced tea.

• Meals & Mixes: Chef Boyardee, Tuna/Chicken/Hamburger Helper, Suddenly Salad, Betty Crocker’s Specialty Potatoes, Kraft Mac and Cheese and Jell-O.

• Condiments: Heinz ketchup, Peter Pan peanut butter and Welch’s jams and jellies.

• Canned Goods: Roberts Shamrock corned meats, Kraft velveeta, Hunt’s tomatoes, Lucky Leaf applesauce, Musselman applesauce, Hanover beans, Honest John foods and Del Monte vegetables.

• Crackers & Cookies: Town House, Cheez-It, Keebler Graham Crackers, Zesta, Chips Deluxe, Pecan Sandies, Soft Batch, Rainbow Chips Deluxe and Barnum Animal Crackers.

• Cereal & Dry Goods: Bisquick, New World pasta, San Giorgio pasta, Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Golden Grahams, Kix, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Betty Crocker pancake, cake, muffin and variety bar mixes.

Filed Under: Union Events Tagged With: , , , ,

Machinists approve new contract with East Metro dealerships

May 2, 2016 by

International_Association_Of_Machinists_and_Aerospace_Workers_logo1Union workers at 22 auto dealerships in St. Paul and the East Metro suburbs voted Sunday to ratify a new three-year agreement with their employers that includes annual wage increases of 2 percent.

The contract, which took effect today, covers about 600 members of Machinists District 77, including mechanics, parts personnel and service technicians.

[Click here to view a list of the East Metro dealerships that hire union workers.]

In addition to annual raises, workers successfully bargained to increase the contributions their employers make to a jointly run health-insurance trust and the union’s pension fun.

District 77 representative Rick Ryan said the union met with representatives of the St. Paul Auto Dealers Association seven times over the last six weeks to negotiate. The union’s bargaining committee unanimously recommended the agreement to members during yesterday’s ratification vote, held at a community center in Vadnais Heights.

“There was give and take on both sides,” Ryan said. “But in the end, we believed this was a good agreement.”

The contract expires April 30, 2019.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Building Trades invited, but unwelcome at Bonfe’s job fair

October 9, 2015 by
Shirts worn by Building Trades union members at Bonfe's employment open house.

Shirts worn by Building Trades union members at Bonfe’s employment open house.

Bonfe’s might want to consider a new recruiting strategy.

For the second year in a row, the non-union mechanical and electrical contractor invited members of area Building Trades unions to attend an open house for prospective employees. And just like last year, Bonfe’s recruiters spent most of the open house trying to keep union members out.

After receiving the invitations, a group of 11 unions teamed up to reserve a room at the Embassy Suites in Bloomington, where Bonfe’s held the open house Tuesday, looking to “piggyback” off the non-union contractor’s promotion.

“We just saw an opportunity where workers might be walking in and looking for jobs,” Ironworkers Local 512 representative Mike Loftus said.

Of course, Local 512 and other Building Trades unions offer more than just a job.

“This was an opportunity to reach people looking for a career,” Steve Dilger of the Minnesota Pipe Trades said. “We set the area standards in wages and benefits. Bonfe’s flat out doesn’t pay area-standard wages and benefits.”

Unfortunately, the Trades’ effort to offer job seekers a choice met stiff resistance.

First, the Embassy Suites gave the unions a room in a remote corner of the hotel. “You needed a highway map to get back there,” Bill Malecha of IBEW Local 110 said.

And when union members attempted to post signs with directions to their suite, hotel staff removed them.

“They told us we couldn’t have any signs up, told us we couldn’t hand out any literature,” Dilger said. “The police tried to tell us our shirts were picket signs. And we were told if we handed out business cards – even in the bar – we would be immediately asked to leave.

“They didn’t treat us very well, Embassy Suites included.”

Still, the unions succeeded in diverting much of Bonfe’s energy from recruiting new workers. And the police presence likely didn’t do much for the job fair’s ambience.

Bonfe’s once was among the Building Trades’ signatory contractors, but it decertified about six years ago. The company no longer hires union electricians, plumbers or sheet metal workers. Bonfe’s is completely non-union.

[To find a union electrical contractor in the Twin Cities, visit the IBEW’s Pro 5 Quality website. For a union plumbing or pipefitting contractor, check out the Minnesota Mechanical Contractors Association website.]

The group of Building Trades unions joining the effort included some crafts whose contractors don’t compete with Bonfe’s for labor: Ironworkers Local 512, Sheet Metal Workers Local 10, Heat & Frost Insulators Local 34, Roofers Local 96, Pipefitters Locals 455 and 539, Painters and Allied Trades District Council 82, Plumbers Locals 34 and 15, and Electrical Workers Local 110 and 292.

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Next Page»