uncharted.ca :: View topic - UFCW 789 Election: A Member Speaks Out

Home

UFCW 789 Election: A Member Speaks Out

	Display posts from previous:

Author	Message

SharynS	Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 12:55 am
Joined: 28 Jan 2006 Posts: 2940 Location: the 'puter	by Robert Adams Some of you may have heard that there will be an election at UFCW local 789. The offices of president and secretary-treasurer are being contested. For many locals, an election wouldn't be all that unusual. But for local 789, there is generally little activity at election time. Maybe an e-board seat or two will be up for grabs. I've often longed for a real election in which issues are respectfully examined and questions are asked by the membership. read more... _________________ Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. - Salman Rushdie
Back to top	profile :: pm :: e-mail :: www







Pearson	Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 1:12 pm
Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 1417 Location: Sun City AZ	While this topic is pretty limiting to those around the country, it should be of interest to those who think local union democracy is an important ingredient in reforming institutionalized labor. Local 789 has a history of open and honest elections. The man that hired me as a staffer had run against a gangster the international had brought in to run the local after the two officers died suddenly back in the early 70's. It is one of the reasons 789 has always been a little sideways with the international. Don't get me wrong, elections weren't a mainstay. My run for the presidency in 1994 was the first real challenge since the mid 80's. Bob's comments about longing for a real election are i expect the hope that open locals in fact do have members feeling they have the right to place their name in nomination. I'll be honest, i haven't followed the local closely. I knew as i became more outspoken about the UFCW it would be best if i seperated myself from my old haunts. From what i have seen, it certainly looks like they are doing a better job when compared to others. One of 789's biggest/best assets has been our ability to communicate straightforward with the membership. I recieved this copy of an email Don sent to a member who had asked for a clarification on a number of issues and i think it is worth reading. His style and the quality of his character comes through nicely: I'm not interested in negative campaigning, but I will respond with this email to the allegations against me and the leadership of our union. Please share this email response with your co-workers. You can forward it, copy it or read it to your kids (kidding) While visiting workplaces today, I was pleased with the response on the attacks. Members view this like the political attack ads on TV. They are tired of it and want to have someone in leadership with solid experience. Some have seen the attack flyer and some haven't so I showed it to them. Members just want their union to negotiate a good contract and they have said we did just that in their last negotiations regardless of the industry we represent. Remember that Jennifer and I are the lead negotiators in EVERY major contract that our union has. Political spending: The nursing home members are furious about the allegations on our political spending. It's how they get their wages and benefits. They want and need us politically active and electing legislators who support them. We hired a land use attorney this year to assist us in working with the city council on objecting to the expansion of the Wall-Mart in Vadnais Heights. WE WERE SUCCESSFUL. That is political spending at its best. We support local non profit groups that have the same views as we do regarding working men and women. Political issues such as living wages, affordable health care, pension reform are all political issues and we make no apologies for our progressive forward thinking. ALL spending has been approved by our Executive Board. If there was an issue with our use of dues money, why wait until the election to bring it up? The board meets every month. Bill Young APPROVES all expenditures as a board member. He has had years to address this if he was truly concerned. Union finances: For the first time in our union's history, we have a professional money manager investing our operating capital. Wachovia Securities is the firm. They report to the board annually, and they also invest the mpls union pension money. We have money in the bank and are in a position to defend our contracts with additional strike benefits if we ever need to. There is no need to have a dedicated fund because then the money can NEVER be used for any other purpose. This is not a wise investment decision. All the employer needs to know is we have money and are willing to spend it to defend our contracts. Jennifer has doubled our hall rental income. She now handles all hall rentals, decorates on weekends, has the food license, and supervises everything related to generating hall income. We ended our relationship with the previous hall managers because we became aware that they weren't renting to the Latino population of our neighborhood. Organizing: In this difficult union environment, keeping our membership level where it is has us ahead of most unions. 653 in Mpls has lost close to 2,000 members. We are now negotiating our first contract with Frederic Health Care Center in Wi. We organized a laundry in Red Wing with almost 100 members. Jennifer was the lead person on the contract negotiations and organizing. We are now in Faribault at Jennie-O in a new campaign. We have a Spanish speaking member working with us and his salary is being totally reimbursed by our international union. They recognize us as an organizing union and want to help. We won the region organizing award last year. The plaque is on the wall in our board room. The allegations that Jennifer and I abandoned our members at MN BF is ridiculous. I negotiated that contract, and Jennifer and I, as officers personally signed the checks for their foodshelf. I assigned both Tom and Rafael to hand out the checks as it was their account. Jennifer and I made many trips out to Buffalo Lake during negotiations. Our members do NOT feel abandoned. They are angry at the employer for closing the plant and thankful for the financial support our union provided them. Staff salaries: All Union Reps make the same money. Organizing Director Doug Mork, being a new employee is on a pay progression to get there also. We model this progression after our full time grocery scale. He makes LESS than Tom and all the other reps until he hits the top of the scale. Doug was the organizing director in the garment industry down south. He has 8 years of direct organizing experience on a national scale winning contracts with Levis and L.L. Bean. and was head and shoulders more qualified than any other candidate. As a former minister with a divinity degree, Doug has delivered sermons in Spanish and served a spanish speaking congregation on the west side of St. Paul. He has more organizing experience than any other person on staff. As far as Doug having personal relationships with staff, I have known Doug for almost 8 years. He was the Director of the Twin City Religion and Labor Network and I was our first union representative with that group. Jennifer was the second one following my election as Secretary/Treasurer. Immigrant workers and members: On May 5th I, spoke to over 2,000 immigrant rights advocates in Powderhorn Park in Mpls. I was the ONLY union president asked to speak. Immigrant workers recognize local 789 as the union that fights for them. On Labor Day, most staff (not Tom) marched in the immigrant rights rally on the west side. On the 6PM and 10PM news that night, our banner and our support of immigrant rights was the LEAD story. I was interviewed twice by channel 4 news reporter Jason De Rusha and we received many calls thanking us for our action. If there is a concern over a Spanish speaking member not being able to run for office, why didn't Tom mentor one and encourage him/her to run for office? Instead of himself taking a seat on the board, he could have recommended a member to run. We ALREADY have a member of the manufacturing division on the Executive Board. Loren Murphy of Stockyards is the division representative. He replaced a board member that retired due to disability. The board wanted a member from the packinghouse/manufacturing membership and Howard Kern, being the union rep for that location, recommended Loren. This is what Tom could have done, but chose not to. Secret meetings: During the last round of retail negotiations, we held many member meetings surrounding particular contractual issues. Why would I change the method that worked so successfully? I and Jennifer have met the new Lunds CEO, Larry Nurse. He is from northern California and asked to meet with us. He wanted to understand the differences between our contract, Mpls, and northern CA. This meeting is not secret because he has been in the stores telling our members he met with us. I and Shirley have met with the Kowalski family. They asked to meet with us to understand the differences between their company and our union. They call it "Business Civics". We have informed Kowalski members we have done this and our next meeting is at our union office. So much for secret meetings. I have NEVER met with Curt Craig or any Cub executive to discuss the upcoming contract, nor have I met with ANY Rainbow executives concerning the same. Nominations: Bill Young walked into my office after the Executive Board meeting on October 3rd. He stated he ran for office on his own and we shook hands. Man to man, face to face. However, This was 3 weeks after nominations, not before. We held nominations at 3 locations. The union hall, Long Prairie, and Winona. Bill Young did NOT nominate himself, nor was he nominated during nominations at the hall. I was there in another meeting and it is documented by election chairperson Howard Kern. Bill left the hall, called Tom Oswald via cell phone and asked Tom to nominate him up in Long Prairie and Tom agreed to. I found out when I called him that evening to check on results. I asked if anything happened up in Long Prairie and Tom said Bill was nominated for President. I asked him who nominated him and Tom said he did. I hung up the phone. This was how I found out Bill was running. I had to call Tom to find out. He didn't even have the courtesy to call and inform me. As President, I have the legal obligation to insure that the election/nomination process is done correctly. Bill did NOT accept his nomination as per our by laws which state that you have to either nominate yourself, accept in person that day or have a letter of acceptance in by close of nominations. A letter was faxed to our office the day AFTER nominations. Bill protested by saying he didn't receive our newsletter even though we have his correct address on file. Heck he was at the hall for nominations so he must have known they were occuring. I informed Howard Kern that I didn't want to hide behind any procedural errors so I dropped the protest. Howard agreed that was the right thing to do. I checked on the dues payments of ALL those running for office. You must have been a dues paying member for the previous consecutive 12 months in order to run. Joy Oswald was injured and didn't pay dues while on medical leave. During the investigation we found that some of our Executive Board, while on the board, had medical leaves and didn't pay dues either. Therefore we allowed Joy to run for office. Additional Issues: It is alleged that the staff isn't properly trained. Our policy allows the staff to have one week of training that is work related. We look to the George Meany Center in Washington DC for this training. Tom has taken courses there and so has most of the staff. But they must ASK me to go. It is work time and your money pays for this training. They are all adults and can figure out for themselves how to clear their calendar in order to go. There already is a Long Term Care division meeting set up for March of next year. A member driven committee, called the "sound off committee" asked for this divisional meeting when they met in July. I was at this meeting (Tom wasn't) and agreed to schedule it. Long Prairie Packing already has meetings up there, and Dakota Premium Foods members meet at our hall all the time, because we are just down the street from the plant. So this idea of division meetings came from the members not Joy or Bill. If there is an idea of improving our scholarship fund, why hasn't it already been introduced? Why make it a political issue? Howard Kern is the outgoing chairman and he asked Doug to succeed him. Doug has experience in education/scholarships as he is a graduate of Carleton College. In fact, he taught an ETHICS course at Carleton College last year. Tom does NOT represent 2,300 members. Cub has 1300, Long Prairie and Dakota he shares with Raphael because Tom doesn't speak Spanish so he can't count all 485 members as his. I'll split that number. I wonder how Rafael would feel that Tom is claiming all those members as his? He has 4 nursing homes with about 60+ members each, so the total is less than 1800. We don't just assign routes by numbers of members. We look at stops, how many contracts to negotiate, number of potential grievances and facility locations. Tom's claim to be the hardest working staff person ever has offended the rest of the staff. I guess the hard work the rest of the staff puts in has no value. Simply not a good way to build working relationships. Jennifer and I have worked diligently over the last three years, when we both ran unopposed by the way. We have NO problem defending the work we do on behalf of ALL our members. I look forward to seeing you and your co-workers at member appreciation night on November 6th, and at the voting booth on the 14th. Let's be real, local 789 isn't perfect. We never were, they never will be. Living within the confines of the biz union model insures they will almost always suffer the trappings of a failed system. Having said that, they are heads and shoulders above most locals and within the UFCW one of the few shinning stars. _________________ If we don't do it, who will?
Back to top	profile :: pm :: e-mail



SharynS	Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 4:16 pm
Joined: 28 Jan 2006 Posts: 2940 Location: the 'puter	Thanks for sharing BP. Of course the circumstances are 789 specific but the honesty and openess of Don's email aren't. It's going to serve the ufcw members I know as a nice comparison piece - rhetoric v. non. It's just so much easier with visual aide, thank-you Don. _________________ Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. - Salman Rushdie
Back to top	profile :: pm :: e-mail :: www



rogead	Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:30 am
Joined: 11 Feb 2006 Posts: 412	I do hope that this thread has value to many. For a lot of people around the country, local 789 has come to represent the way a local union should be run--or at least as close as is possible given the international's role. Don did distribute his response to that email throughout the various workplaces in local 789. I think it’s a respectful and informational response which seems to be well received by members. My reference to a real election is a simple, if not idealistic one. I believe that good, decent, and caring people can disagree on the appropriate path for a local union without losing sight of each other’s dignity and humanity. Free and open elections are the sign of a healthy local (or of a city or of a nation). Unfortunately, the outcomes of elections often hinge on fraudulent claims and fraudulent personalities. Some words and phrases create such a dramatic reaction, that the question of accuracy becomes irrelevant: “communist”, “socialist”, “fascist”, “Nazi”, “atheist”, “pedophile”—I’ve heard each of these terms used against various candidates in political elections. In virtually every case, the accusation has been false; but once the image is cast, it takes on a life of its own. In local union elections, it’s stuff like “secret meetings” and “misappropriation of dues”. Don’t get me wrong, I realize that those claims are far too often true, but they aren’t here. And the result of that is the besmirching of the reputation of some good and effective union people. But, when the good things happen in an election, and when candidates are mutually respectful and talk about the issues; it is an empowering and motivating force upon the electorate. Those who listen and those who ASK QUESTIONS; learn more than they ever thought they could--- not only about the issues, but about themselves.
Back to top	profile :: pm :: www



Pearson	Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 1:10 pm
Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 1417 Location: Sun City AZ	Quote: Thanks for sharing BP. Of course the circumstances are 789 specific but the honesty and openess of Don's email aren't. That's the way i read it as well S. So often the crap being spewed by folks in the biz union model is spin. As you read it, there is usually this awful sensation one should shower, a take a very large bar of soap with you. In Don's case, it was just simple, pure and on point. It should come as no surprise. If we had one strength at 789 it was our ability to communicate staright up. We learned a long time ago, trying to convince people a stinking fetid pile of shit was really a sweet smelling rose was silliness. Good choices are only made when communication is free flowing and open. Allowing members to ask the tough questions and giving them honest answers is what breeds a culture where the members are at the core of a unions existence. I agree, nice job Don. Never become over impressed with either your position or your value. Leaders come and go, members are forever. _________________ If we don't do it, who will?
Back to top	profile :: pm :: e-mail

Home

Forums

News & Views

UFCW 789 Election: A Member Speaks Out


Page 1 of 1	Display posts from previous:
	Jump to: