After months of stalled negotiations, UFCW Local 832 members at Winnipeg‘s Maple Leaf meat packing facility voted overwhelmingly last month to authorize a strike at the bacon production plant. The November 15 strike vote marks the first time a strike has been authorized at the plant since it was purchased by Maple Leaf over twenty years ago. Originally published in The North Star, an independent newsroom covering labor and people's struggles in Canada.

Beginning November 1, 42 million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly known as “food stamps,” are set to go without benefits. Among them are union members in underpaid industries like grocery and retail. Originally published in Labor Notes.

Click here to check out EW4D’s first-of-its-kind web tool for comparing union grocery contracts across UFCW locals and employers. See how your contract stacks up!

Kevin Flynn has worked as a meat cutter at Albertsons in Marysville, Wash., for the last 18 years. He is a shop steward and was a member of the 2025 Bargaining Committee for UFCW Local 3000. In Essential Voice, Kevin writes about what went right — and what could be done differently in the future.

After being shut out of contract negotiations, members of UFCW Local 700 in Indiana voted down a concessionary tentative agreement with Kroger twice in a row. Andrea Reynolds, a DSD receiver in Kokomo, IN, shares how they did it in Essential Voice.

Each time we go to the bargaining table, everyone asks: Did we get a good contract? We all want to know, because a good contract can make our lives better, and a bad contract…sucks! But another important question is: Did we build our power to get an even better contract next time?