“Rank-and-file Members Are Waking Their Sleeping Union Giants.”

GROCERY WORKERS FILE FEDERAL LAWSUIT AGAINST UFCW INTERNATIONAL

APRIL 19, 2024 CHICAGO: Two grocery workers from different ends of the country filed a historic federal lawsuit against their international union, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), one of the nation’s largest private sector unions with more than 1.1 million members, most significantly in the grocery industry. They made the announcement during a break during a conference of labor union activists in Chicago.

“UFCW’s system is rigged to keep certain rank and file members’ voices quiet, just as CEOs and corporations rig the workplace to keep workers’ voices quiet,” said plaintiff Iris Scott, a grocery worker and member of UFCW 1459, who lives in Western Massachusetts. “We’ve seen how equal representation has transformed the Teamsters, SAG-AFTRA, and UAW into fearless, powerful forces, winning big raises for workers, and organizing more members, through strikes and coordinated bargaining. We want to make UFCW a stronger and more effective force for more than 1 million current members”

Rank and file members criticize UFCW International leadership for failing to capitalize on high worker interest in unions, discouraging members to use strikes against employers, and much more.  At last year’s convention in Las Vegas, rank and file members were stopped from passing a package of reform amendments. 

“As the Teamsters and UAW show the rest of the nation how to empower rank and file members and win big for workers, other unions like UFCW are lying dormant,” said Steve Williamson, Executive Director of Essential Workers for Democracy, a funder of the lawsuit. “Rank and file members are waking their sleeping union giants. We want to put workers back in control of their own unions to build power so they get what they need to care for themselves and their families.”

“In violation of federal law, UFCW’s system is designed to limit the voices, and votes, of its own union members on critical issues such as the elections of top officials,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney Thomas Geoghegan of Despres, Schwartz & Geoghegan in Chicago. Geoghegan represented the Teamsters Democratic Union against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Department of Justice, which helped establish the permanent right of rank and file Teamsters to directly elect their principal officers, also known as one member, one vote.

The complaint on behalf of Kyong Berry of Washington state and Iris Scott of Massachusetts was filed with the D.C. District Court on Friday morning. The suit claims that UFCW doles out unequal rights and powers to different groups of union members (locals), in violation of the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, which states that every labor union member shall have equal rights and privileges. 

“Voting rights for union members should not vary by a 300 to 1 ratio depending on the size of the local union you belong to,” said Kyong Berry, UFCW 3000 member and grocery worker in Washington state. “My union is the largest with more than 50,000 members but we have fewer votes per member than other unions. This isn’t an accident, it’s the way UFCW International has rigged the system to keep certain people in power indefinitely and it’s illegal.”

UFCW’s local unions send delegates to a national convention every 5 years to vote. How many voting delegates each UFCW local can send varies widely from 2.0 votes per 1,000 members to just 0.5 votes per 1,000 members, as shown in the chart below.

The Teamsters, UAW, ILWU, SAG-AFTRA and other unions have a one member one vote system that enables union members to vote directly for their top leaders and policies. Another alternative is a flat formula that assigns one delegate vote per 500 members. 

“The ripple effects of this lawsuit will go far beyond UFCW’s one million members and their families. Workers from dozens of other unions will be watching closely,” said Dan Campbell, a retired Teamster and union representative from Wisconsin, for decades a leader of the Teamsters Democratic Union, the reform organization for the Teamsters.