This year, like so many recently, is off to a pretty busy start down here at Frank Meehan Hall. Some months we have so many projects going on it’s tough to keep tabs on and properly staff all of them to ensure positive outcomes for our membership. In my humble opinion, we have the best staff in the UFCW which makes it possible for us to keep multiple new projects progressing, while not letting membership servicing and contract enforcement slip even slightly. Over the last few years, we have continued to add and train new staff, in all departments, to both replace retirements and help grow our servicing program across our jurisdiction. These new staff members have helped us identify new organizing opportunities and negotiate some of the strongest contracts for our members across the industries they work in. I’ll spend the rest of my article giving you additional details on some of the more notable projects we have been working on this year, with more to come!
On April 11th, our newest Local 1500 members from Partners Coffee, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, voted, by a margin of almost 2-1, in favor of being represented by Local 1500. This dynamic group of workers spent a great deal of time and energy selecting the right Union to assist them in the organizing process. When they finished their process, I’m happy to say they chose us! The Partners campaign proved to be unique in many ways, but after all the roadblocks and issues the workers’ voices and efforts were rewarded with a decisive organizing victory! We couldn’t be prouder to have worked with them over the last year. Personally, I hope that election rallies in front of union election sites become a regularity in the future, because the Partners rally was awesome! The workers interacted with their community partners (no pun intended) and each other while making and distributing support buttons and literature for hours out front! It was an amazing educational experience for the community that also energized the workers and the Local 1500 staff on site. Contract negotiations and member representation have already begun for these workers and hopefully more Partners Coffee workers from their other cafés will join their effort soon.
We got some more great news in mid-April when, after a two-and-a-half-year battle with the Employer, we were able to secure a new contract with significant wage increases and paid time off improvements for the workers at Aron’s Kissena Farms in Queens. This is a former Local 1718 shop that we have been servicing, along with many other Kosher markets, since late 2001. Unfortunately, the contract process for these workers was not as simple as it could’ve been and was riddled with confusion, intimidation and so many legal challenges. The hours spent with the NLRB, and the number of unfair labor practice charges we filed to get to a positive resolution is inconceivable. However, in the end, it all proved to be worth it as a new 3-year agreement was reached, and unanimously ratified by the membership! The members at Aron’s certainly have learned the value of their Union membership over the last few years and we are stoked that they stayed with us and never gave up!
On May 10th after almost a year of, at times contentious, negotiations led by EVP/Recorder Joe Waddy, Secretary-Treasurer Aly Waddy and the Blank Street member bargaining committee, a strong first contract for our members at Blank Street Coffee was secured! This contract covers over 120 members working in 19 Blank Street Coffee cafés scattered throughout Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. On May 29th this historic first contract was unanimously approved by the members who voted in four centralized locations around the City. We couldn’t be prouder to welcome these Blank Street Coffee members to the Local 1500 family and plan to keep working with the remaining Blank Street workers throughout NYC and hope to have them choose to join the Blank Street/1500 family in the future.
If you read the Spring 2024 issue of The Advocate, you should already know that we have an active informational picket line up at the Bingo Wholesale Kosher superstore on Burnside Avenue in Inwood (south Nassau County). That line is up four days a week, Tuesday-Friday (weather permitting), every week, and will be until the community understands that although some of the item prices at Bingo may be lower, they shouldn’t ignore the reality of those savings? We hope to modify the mindset of their customers and help them recognize that having good jobs in their neighborhood, jobs that pay a respectable wage and provide benefits to their employees, is more important than saving a few bucks a week on your basket of groceries. It’s easy for an employer to charge less for their products when they don’t provide employees with benefits, scheduled wage increases, holidays, or paid time off. We fully understand that a dollar doesn’t stretch as far today in any food store as it used to, but that also goes double for the employees in those stores as well. Our goal is to try and maintain the area wage and working standards, while helping the Bingo workers prevent a race to the bottom in the retail kosher markets throughout the Five Towns area.
On top of all the programs above, we have also negotiated and ratified new agreements at Gemstone KeyFood, Holiday Farms, Columbus Foods, and Scaturro’s so far this year as well. We still have contracts to negotiate at Cedar Market, Seven Seas Foodway, Food Bazaar (wall to wall), HMSM, Gourmet Glatt Lakewood, and IGA Supersaver in Amagansett in 2024 also. In mid-July there will be a full-scale voter registration drive and Active Ballot Club signup in our stores. Remember in most of our contracts, if you were hired after the mid 90’s, you MUST be a registered voter to receive Presidential Election Day as a paid Holiday! This signup project will be run with help from International Representatives from the UFCW Political and Legislative Department, so be on the lookout for their shop visits. We are looking for some shop stewards to assist the Union Reps that week, and we are looking for a few members that are willing to work with the International Union on their national GOTV program for 12 weeks. If you are interested in either experience please contact our Political Representative Emily Dwyer, edwyer@ufcw1500.org for more info.
I am sure that many of you are wondering about the recent Stop & Shop news regarding upcoming store closures. For months prior to Stop & Shop’s recent announcement our members reported to us the rumors about two of our stores closing or being sold soon. As a Local that has already had seven Stop & Shop/Peapod closures or sales here since 2020 these rumors don’t surprise us. We fully expect that when Stop & Shop finishes their fleet review there will be a few Local 1500 stores marked for closure, and so should you. However, because of the previous closings we’ve endured we are cautiously optimistic that further closings in Local 1500’s jurisdiction could be less significant than in other trading areas. Unfortunately, until the list is revealed, none of us will know for certain what is happening but please remember that Stop & Shop has always worked well with Local 1500 finding ways to maintain our members’ jobs when stores closed. Although nobody likes disruption on the job, dealing with layoffs and bumping is a much heavier lift than being offered a transfer to maintain your livelihood and benefit packages. For now, the best advice I can give you is to keep going to work and do what you do best, service your customers. It makes no sense to do anything else. As always, we stand ready to negotiate with Stop & Shop and any other employer on your behalf if/when the time comes. We appreciate your concerns and will continue to support you in every way. I’ve enjoyed seeing so many of you during my store visits over the last few weeks and I plan to see hundreds more of you in the weeks to come! #MyUnionHasValue