Politico: UFCW rank and file sue leadership in increasingly bitter dispute

Apr 26

Rank-and-file members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union [UFCW] International are suing their leadership over what they say is a lack of democratic representation on key issues like a major grocery merger and a decline in organizing expenditures even as other unions invest in organizing campaigns at growing rates.
“The UFCW international system is rigged to keep rank-and-file members’ voices quiet just as CEOs and corporations rigged the workplace to keep workers’ voices quiet,” said Iris Scott, a member of UFCW local 1459 in Western Massachusetts and a plaintiff in the lawsuit in a press conference Friday.
The case, filed in D.C. District Court, argues that reform to UFCW’s delegate system at its conventions will allow members
more direct control over their union. Some of UFCW’s 1.2 million members have become increasingly incensed at an
international leadership they view as overpaid and inimical to their interests. They point to growing union assets even as membership has declined…
Supporters of the lawsuit say that the problems predate the merger, which the Federal Trade Commission has since sued to block.
“This lawsuit was on its way without regard to the proposed Kroger-Albertsons merger,” Tom Geoghegan, the lawyer representing workers in the lawsuit said in Friday’s press conference. [He was also the one who represented United Auto Workers (UAW) and Teamsters in their prior lawsuits that changed their courses dramatically.] “The disparity in representation has increased over time in the UFCW as more and more of the membership is in larger and larger locals and that phenomenon is a reflection of the increasing concentration in the food industry.”
…The legal challenge revolves around how the union allocates delegates to its main governing body. The lawsuit alleges that the system underweights the largest local organizations, while at same time depriving small units of being able to choose their representation on the governing body by having their local leadership automatically act as their representatives.
Combined, UCFW’s structure violates the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, a wide-ranging law that regulates how unions conduct themselves, according to the lawsuit…
Rank and file members at UFCW have also become increasingly disillusioned with their leadership’s lack of initiative in organizing more workers — and they argue that reforming their internal voting system will lead to more responsive leadership.
…If successful, the lawsuit could encourage legal challenges of other unions’ governance in an effort to make them more responsive to the desires of rank-and-file members.