UFCW Local 1459 Member Iris Scott Talks About Their Journey to the Vegas 2023 Convention

Iris Scott UFCW Local 1459 Member

Iris Scott is a food cooperative worker in Western Massachusetts and a member of UFCW Local 1459. They decided to get active in their local union and secured a delegate slot to the Las Vegas 2023 convention. Iris was kind enough to let us interview them about their journey. 

"I think one of the most important things right now is this wave of organizing that's going on across the country in labor. We see it anywhere from Starbucks to Amazon to Trader Joe's and everything in between. Also lots of local and independent non-national chains and stores. But I think UFCW has a really long way to go to be a significant part of that wave. 

I know that there's gonna be enthusiasm for some of this, and we're hoping to get as many rank and file members or even union leadership from locals who want to be part of this change in UFCW to be able to show up at the convention in April. But it doesn't just stop there. We want to push for some of these changes at the convention but know that this is likely going to be a longer fight. We need to spread the word to rank and file members across the US and Canada."

Please note, the interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Q: Tell us about our history with UFCW

IRIS: I live in Western Massachusetts, and I work for a food cooperative and I am a member of our local 1459 and I joined that after 60 days with my employer. And I've been with my local for maybe just about a year and a half.

I had never been in a union before. My dad was in a union when I was growing up all the way up until he retired a couple years ago. But I had never been part of one myself. And over the last few years, the last two to three years I've learned a lot more about the labor movement. I decided to apply to my workplace specifically so that I could be part of that union because that was very important to me.

Q: Tell us more about wanting to join your workplace specifically because it was a union shop.

IRIS: So I guess rewinding a little back to 2020 when multiple crises were hitting our country all at the same time, I started to become more aware of these larger issues. And having my eyes opened to the fact that really no sustainable change is going to happen in this country without it kind of starting from the ground up. That really starts with workers in this country. 

I had been working administrative jobs in higher education and I decided to change things up completely. The food cooperative I worked for at the time was opening a second location. And I wanted to join. I knew that they were unionized, and that's what I wanted. I wanted to be part of that. Then six months later, I became a steward in the store.

Q: How did you decide to run for delegate to the convention? What was the process like? 

I'm still fairly new within UFCW, so I wasn't around the last time there was a convention in 2018. I wasn't even aware of the international convention coming up in April until I received a letter from our local in the fall. And it was about if you want to nominate someone or nominate yourself as a delegate. You need to do it this way on this day at this place. 

And the stewards from both of our stores kind of started talking about it and not really knowing what it was like. We didn't know how many people tried to run as a delegate. But we decided amongst ourselves that we did want to try to have some representation, even if we could get one delegate from our stores. That seemed like it would be a really positive thing to be a part of, to see how it works, and to have a small voice within our international. So we actually got maybe three or four of us nominated and came to find out that had never really happened before. 

Q: How did you all get yourselves nominated?

IRIS: In our local 1459 you could either self-nominate or you could go and nominate someone else. I believe the only criteria were that you had to be a union member for at least a year. For our local there were two locations on a specific day in the fall that you needed to go to in person. We had no idea how contested this could be. This letter went to probably a couple thousand people or more.

Q: That seems pretty daunting. Yet you managed to get yourself elected.

There ended up being one delegate and one alternate spot that were available. And because we were the only people that had shown up and or gone through this process to get nominated we were able to fill those positions. So I will be attending the conference as a delegate and my coworker and fellow steward Ian will be attending as an alternate.

Q: So you showed up and said I want to represent rank-and-file-workers, and the opportunity was there?

IRIS: Yes, absolutely. And in fact, the president of our local was a little bit surprised that it happened because it had never happened before, but was very pleased that we will have rank-and-file. He's very excited that we have rank and file representation from our local for the upcoming international conference.

Q: Do you think there’s a lesson here for others who want to get involved?

IRIS: Absolutely!We're very lucky to have a very encouraging and democratically minded local and president of our local. But even if you feel like you don't have that, we still have the power to push for that and to push back. 

Q: So you’re a delegate to the convention now. What changes do you want to see?

So I think one of the most important things right now is this wave of organizing that's going on across the country in labor. We see it anywhere from Starbucks to Amazon to Trader Joe's and everything in between. Also lots of local and independent non-national chains and stores. But I think UFCW has a really long way to go to be a significant part of that wave. 

With Trader Joe's and Starbucks, some of the workers at these places have chosen to organize as their own independent unions. We want to be a union where they know they want to be a part of UFCW, especially Trader Joe's. We represent so many grocery workers, and we should be at the forefront of their organizing push across the country. 

Q: Do you think there will be a big push for change at the 2023 convention?

IRIS: I know that there's gonna be enthusiasm for some of this, and we're hoping to get as many rank and file members or even union leadership from locals who want to be part of this change in UFCW to be able to show up at the convention in April. But it doesn't just stop there. We want to push for some of these changes at the convention but know that this is likely going to be a longer fight. We need to spread the word to rank and file members across the US and Canada. 

Q: Anything else you want to say?

IRIS: For any rank-and-file members that may not even be aware of the general structure of our international, it is run by a small number of people who have tremendous power at the very top, and we are not served by that. And that's why we are pushing for some of these changes, especially for things like one member one vote. We want to have a say in who is at the top. We want to move our union forward from the ground up. We want to be that voice of change, and we want the very top of our international to base their decisions and their trajectory upon what we need and where we see things moving.