If you care about the fate of working people in America you care about the
UFCW's campaign,
Grocery Workers United. Right now in North Carolina grocery workers have been trying to negotiate a new contract with Krogers management for over 2 months. The members had to vote to authorize a strike. You know when workers
authorize a strike something big is at stake.
That something is healthcare. Kroger announced plans to raid the employees' health care funds and force them to pay over $1 million out of pocket to make up the difference.
I contacted the union to see if they could guest blog on the DMIblog and share the thoughts and concerns of these brave workers directly with our readers. I figured folks on Kos would like to hear about a real labor struggle direct from the source too. Amber Sparksfrom UFCW interviewed two union member/activists Khadeeja Mulland and Nina Tilley. As Amber said "things will be good for American workers again--they're determined to make it so." Here are blog posts excerpted from DMIblog.
Amber explained: A job in a grocery store used to be considered a good, career job. Grocery store employees knew that their jobs were secure, wages high, and benefits good. There were plenty of career opportunities, whether you were a high school student working a part-time job in the summer, or a full-time meat cutter with a family to support.
But as grocery companies get bigger and bigger, and compete with non-union retailers like Wal-Mart, workers are getting left behind by the companies that they helped to make so successful. Even companies like Kroger and Safeway, who are making huge profits and competing well with Wal-Mart, use the behemoth retailer as an easy excuse to cut wages, benefits, and hours of employees. Workers suffer, their families suffer, and the community suffers as grocery jobs become low-wage, dead-end jobs.
In the next year, 400,000 United Food and Commercial Workers Union-represented grocery workers nationwide have contracts up for negotiation. And they're fighting as they're never fought before--on a unified, national scale--to make grocery jobs good, career jobs once more. Their campaign, Grocery Workers United, will leverage the power of 400,000 UFCW grocery workers speaking with one voice.
I'd like to let the workers do the talking. Meet Khadeeja Mulland and Nina Tilley, of UFCW Local 204 in North Carolina. Nina has been with Kroger for 12 years, and Khadeeja for nine. I talked with them about rising health care costs, wage increases, and Kroger's attacks on health care in North Carolina during ongoing contract negotiations.
What do you see as the biggest problem with the proposals that Kroger has made so far?
Khadeeja: Kroger claims that we're getting increased wages and a modest contribution. But what they fail to mention is that our contribution will be over half of our wage increase, and that's not even keeping up with the cost of inflation. And I'm lucky--I'm single. I can't imagine how people with a family will pay for the increased contributions.
Nina: Sure they're proposing this wage increase, but it's not even enough to cover what you have to pay extra, just for the health care. I don't have to worry about it, because I'm retiring next year. But I'm going to fight for all of these younger folks, who've got children and families and won't be able to afford to take their kids to the doctor.
How do you think these things affect the community?
Nina: A lot of people work at Kroger, and if they can't afford the health insurance, that's a lot of people that can't afford health insurance, a lot of families without it.
Khadeeja: It's unfortunate that cutting wages and benefits is such a growing trend, because more and more of your neighbors, community members, work in retail jobs like Kroger. Retail jobs are some of the fastest growing in the whole country. And Wal-Mart has pushed the envelope in cutting health care, in cutting wages, so other retailers follow suit. It hurts everybody.
What do you think it will take to get Kroger to agree to a fair and equitable contract?
Nina: I think Kroger will agree when they see the support we have all over the country.
Khadeeja: Kroger will agree because all of us, community and workers, are standing up to corporate greed across the board, and we will win.