Grocery workers workers win historic raises, landmark safety language in new contracts

March 25, 2024 by

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

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St. Paul nursing home workers want respect for their essential work, and they’re on strike to get it

July 20, 2020 by

Cerenity Humboldt nursing assistants Helen Boayle (L), Jennifer Balanay and Janice Dunbar (R), members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, walk the picket line July 20.

On a day when working people in over 25 cities across the U.S. joined a union-backed Strike for Black Lives, nursing home workers at Cerenity Humboldt Care Center in St. Paul staged a 24-hour strike, demanding a contract that reflects their essential work.

Members of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota who work at Cerenity Humboldt set up a picket line July 20 after a majority voted to authorize a strike over unfair labor practices.

The health care workers say contract talks with the employer have broken down despite seven meetings between representatives for the two sides over the last six months.

As bargaining has dragged on, the novel coronavirus has spread widely in Minnesota’s long-term-care and assisted-living facilities. Their residents account for more than three-quarters of the state’s COVID-19 deaths, and some 7,500 known cases have been traced back to congregate living facilities.

Despite the risks SEIU members are taking, Cerenity Humboldt, workers say, has refused their demand for pay increases that reflect their critical service during the pandemic. Worse, management continues to make proposals that would move some union members backwards.

Rhonda Little, who has been a cook at Cerenity for over 5 years and member of the union’s negotiating team, said management “just doesn’t seem to want to negotiate” when the two sides meet.

“During this pandemic we’ve kept COVID away from our patients, and it is time our facility steps up to respect our work,” Little said. “We only can put up with so much. We have lost so many employees because of turnover, but they don’t want to give us a fair raise – and they are talking about taking away paid sick time.”

Little said she worries high turnover will impact the quality of services SEIU members provide at Cerenity Humbold. In the last year, 17 people have left her department alone.

The SEIU bargaining unit includes 85 cooks, housekeepers, janitors, nursing assistants, laundry aides, dietary aides and restorative aides who work inside the facility.

“Our pay is some of the lowest around for our work,” she said. “St. Paul minimum wage is going up towards $15, and people starting here don’t even make $15. Enough is enough. We want them to realize that we are tired of not being taken seriously. By going on strike, we are standing together and standing up for ourselves.”

Cerenity Humboldt workers went on strike the same day as other nursing home workers across the country, as well as fast-food, hospital, airport and other essential workers participating in the “Strike for Black Lives.” Strikers highlighted the risks essential workers, who are disproportionately people of color, face during the pandemic, often without sick pay or good health care, without proper protective equipment and for poverty wages.

In Minnesota, striking workers joined together with MSP Airport workers, currently fighting for a $15 minimum wage at MSP, for a car caravan highlighting their unity, despite working in different industries, in the fight for economic and racial justice.

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Pioneer Press workers join nationwide contract campaign, win first raise in seven years

August 16, 2016 by

newsmattersAfter banding together with workers at 11 other newspapers owned by the same hedge fund, union members at the St. Paul Pioneer Press won their first wage increase in seven years, part of a new three-year contract they voted to ratify Aug. 9.

Members of the Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild will receive 3-percent raises Jan. 1, 2017, according to terms of the new agreement, which also calls for “wage reopeners” – negotiations that could lead to additional raises – in the contract’s second and third years.

As they did this summer, Pioneer Press workers will participate in any additional bargaining jointly with other members of Guild locals employed by Digital First Media, a newspaper group owned by Alden Global Capital.

In an innovative and historic contract campaign, Pioneer Press workers joined forces with fellow Guild members at publications across the country, including The Denver Post, The Mercury News, The Trentonian and eight others.

Together, they launched the “#NewsMatters” campaign more than seven moths ago, using social media, member mobilization and an online petition drive to put the heat on management. More than 11,000 people nationwide joined in calling on Digital First to support quality journalism by negotiating fairly with the workers who make it possible.

Last month, the campaign delivered results at the bargaining table, as Digital First workers leveraged their collective weight to win across-the-board raises at all 12 newspapers, including some that hadn’t seen increases in 10 years.

But the company refused to budge when it came to one major concession: job security for workers in circulation and page production.

According to the Guild, the Pioneer Press is likely to outsource field circulation to local contractors, which would affect about 36 workers, mostly part-time. And up to eight local page-production workers could see their jobs outsourced before the new contract expires, as Digital First looks to centralize production at a common location for all of its publications.

In a statement on the Minnesota Guild’s website, the Pioneer Press bargaining team said it secured a “letter of agreement regarding enhanced severance packages and limits on the number of positions that may be outsourced” in production, and enhanced severance for any outsourced circulation employees.

The new contract also rolls back the Pioneer Press’ ability to furlough Guild members, capping the number of unpaid days management can impose at three in 2018 and eliminating unpaid days altogether in 2019.

The Minnesota Newspaper and Communications Guild, TNG-CWA Local 37002, currently represents 167 Pioneer Press employees.

A grant from the Communications Workers of America, the Newspaper Guild’s parent union, helped make the joint bargaining framework possible, covering travel and other costs.

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