The fight for $40 is on! Fred Meyer workers in UFCW local 555 have initiated their own rank and file committee called United for Class Wide Action (UFCWA). UFCWA is committed to ensuring a contract bargaining campaign that will truly improve their working conditions. Sign their petition to support their demands, help circulate their petition, let other Fred Meyer workers know this movement is growing.
Click HERE to support CSAN UFCW workers.
“The Fight For $40”
As food and commercial workers, we are among the most underpaid and highly exploited in the working class. While the companies we work for continue to make record breaking profits off our labor we are compensated with poverty wages. We deserve better. We need a union that doesn’t just work to maintain the status quo & play catch up, but one that takes the fight to the companies, by pushing for wage increases that can substantially improve our standard of living, not simply keep us afloat living paycheck to paycheck. Just a few years ago during the pandemic, we were called heroes and essential workers, asked to sacrifice ourselves to keep the economy going. As over 1 million fellow workers died from Covid-19 we were on the front-lines. Today our corporate masters again ask us to sacrifice ourselves by accepting decreasing real wages and worsening working conditions, while they rake in billions. Meanwhile, our boss-linked union leadership have created a weak & complacent union, that more often than not keeps workers divided and wages low. It’s time we set the record straight, the companies need us, we don’t need them!
United For Class Wide Action (UFCWA) is a committee of workers in the United Food and Commercial Workers union who recognize that the working class and the employing, capitalist class represent two antagonizing sets of interests that fundamentally have nothing in common. It’s on these grounds that we have come together to begin the hard work of reshaping our union into one that can shake up the status quo and get the goods for our fellow workers. To do that we need to transform the UFCW from a collaborationist business union that seeks to make common cause with the bosses, into a member driven union organized around advancing our strike power and which brings together all the UFCW into common solidarity with their fellow workers across workplaces and sectors both within the union itself and the wider working class movement. UFCWA along with our fellow class unionist workers in the Class Struggle Action Network are working hand in hand to unite workers across unions everywhere.
What is UFCWA Fighting For?
- $40 an hour for all workers.
- Removal of no-strike clause from all contracts.
- Minimum 30 guaranteed hours for all.
- Remove all tier systems that divide workers.
- Open bargaining for all contracts (Live stream all negotiations and communications there of between the union and the company).
- Better healthcare coverage, mental health (to include at least two therapy visits a month) and pension plans.
- Improved vacation time, mental health days and personal days
- Prioritize funding within the union for strike readiness initiatives, not lobbying (bolster strike fund).
How Are We Going to Get It?
UFCW is our union. We pay the dues and we should have a voice in setting the agenda. Some things that we can do to start making a change are.
- Get your fellow workers to sign on to this vision for the union by signing our petition to show support.
- Get onto your unions bargaining teams when contract negotiations arise and push for UFCWA demands.
- Put forward resolutions towards these ends within meetings of union locals and at larger regional gatherings.
- Practice solidarity and strike readiness today by getting your fellow UFCW workers to come out to picket lines in your area.
- Join UFCWA and begin working with other workers in your work place to make this a reality!
Printable leaflet for the UFCWA
