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.

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Conditions that sparked strikes at Nabisco, Frito Lay have ‘spread’ to Minnesota, union warns

September 23, 2021 by

Old Dutch workers, members of BCTGM Local 22, gather outside the union’s offices in Minneapolis.

Members of Bakery Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers Local 22 who work at Old Dutch are gearing up for contract talks this fall, in which they intend to push the company to ease increasingly taxing workloads.

That’s the same rallying cry sounded by union members who went on strike at Frito Lay and Nabisco in other parts of the U.S. this year, drawing nationwide attention.

“We recently had over 50 members in our parking lot on a Saturday morning, their only day off of the week,” Local 22 President Wally Borgen said. “These members are angry because they’re working a lot of overtime, and they say the company doesn’t pay enough to recruit and retain workers.”

The dissatisfaction over unsafe workloads and lack of work-life balance among food-processing workers, Borgen said, “has spread to Local 22 in a big way.”

Borgen said negotiations with Old Dutch have been respectful in recent years, giving him hope Local 22 can avoid the drastic measures Nabisco and Frito Lay forced workers to take.

But Local 22 members in other bargaining units might not be so lucky.

Cub Foods’ parent company, UNFI, is threatening to stop paying into a union pension fund covering about 230 bakers at corporate-owned stores in Minnesota, according to Local 22, which began contract negotiations with UNFI last month.

Not all Cub Foods stores in the Twin Cities are owned by UNFI.

“They’re not talking about bargaining about it; their lawyer just informed us on the first day of negotiations that they are withdrawing from our pension fund the 1st of the year,” Borgen said. “Our pension is fully funded at 104%. There’s no reason to pull out of a great benefit for these workers.”

Additionally, three members of Local 22 have filed grievances accusing UNFI of stealing paid vacation hours. It’s a slap in the face, Borgen said, to workers who have kept bakery shelves stocked in grocery stores during the pandemic.

“Thousands of people were pouring in and out of those stores, putting our members at higher risk than your average worker,” he said. “They came to work knowing that they’d probably walk through a COVID cloud at some point.”

In some good news for Local 22, grain millers stood together and won significant pay raises at two General Mills elevators in Minneapolis earlier this month.

Union members voted unanimously to authorize a strike Sept. 9, after management refused to put more money into wages during negotiations that began in June. Within a week of the strike vote, General Mills had upped the offer, and Local 22 members had a new, four-year contract with 3% raises in the first and second years.

Local 22 is also in negotiations with Archer Daniels Midland on a contract covering 15 grain millers at another Minneapolis elevator, where members have voted down an offer with wage increases below 3%.

“There are places that are paying more, and everyone’s hiring,” Borgen said. “They worked every day through this pandemic. They think they deserve some respect.”

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