The 2025 UFCW $250k Club: 67 Union Officials See $2.7 Million Raise
Every year, EW4D compiles a nonpartisan report on UFCW finances. By making it easier for members to see top officer salaries, we’re working towards a more transparent union.
In the 2024 fiscal year, 67 UFCW officials were paid over $250,000 in total compensation — all the way up to $760,225. From last year, 7 new officials joined the $250k Club, and spending on the club went up by $2,686,582. Some officials saw raises of up to $97,053. Altogether, our union spent $22,840,193 in 2024 in combined compensation for the 67 members of the $250k Club.
Union officials deserve to be compensated fairly for the work they do for our union. This report isn’t to criticize any one official — many of the officers on this list work hard for the UFCW and should be paid well for it. But when the average retail worker in the US brings in a median $34,730, there’s no reason our union officials’ salaries should look more like the bosses we’re taking on than the workers they’re meant to represent.
That’s why EW4D supports capping officer salaries at $250,000. If officer salaries were capped at $250,000 instead, the UFCW would have saved over $6,000,000 in members’ dues in 2024. But when we put forward a resolution for this reform at the 2023 UFCW Convention, only 5 locals voted in favor. You can check how your local voted here.
If you believe the UFCW should belong to the members so we can fight for better contracts and stand up to the boss, get in touch with EW4D and start organizing for change.
HOW BLOATED SALARIES HURT UNIONS
Inflated officer salaries hurt our ability to organize. For one, this is money misspent that could be going towards organizing. The $250k Club alone costs the UFCW more than $20,000,000 every single year. That money could fund an entire organizing campaign at a non-union company. Instead, it goes to the same union officials year after year.
Second, bringing new members into our movements is already hard enough — it’s even harder when union-busting companies can point to inflated officer salaries and say, “Do you really want to pay dues for that?”
HOW TO FIX IT
UFCW isn’t the only union that needs finance reform. Many other union presidents make anywhere between $400,000 and $700,000, as Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) writes.
In fact, TDU’s decades of informing, organizing, and uniting members in the Teamsters brought significant changes to officer salaries. How did they win? By publishing reports like this one, winning One Member, One Vote, and finally amending the IBT constitution to cap officer salaries.
In the United Auto Workers (UAW), reformers in Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) pushed for financial transparency in a resolution at their 2022 Convention after officials voted to give themselves a 30% raise at the 2018 Convention amidst a major corruption scandal.