On March 7, 2026, 20 rank and file UFCW members from 10 different locals across the country came together in Indianapolis, Indiana to establish a vision of an organized, fighting, and democratic UFCW.

Members outlined this vision, setting priorities for stronger contracts and a stronger union, in a document we called the Essential Workers’ Bill of Rights.

essential workers’
bill of rights

1. We need a living wage. Wages must exceed the real cost of living and needs of workers and their families.

2. We need secure jobs. We oppose corporations opening, closing, merging, and selling our workplaces at will in order to destroy our wages, benefits, and unions. We oppose corporate mergers that threaten our livelihoods with layoffs, closures, and forced transfers. 

3. We need a safe workplace. Workers must have a say over the pace and conditions of work to ensure their safety on the job.

4. We need fair staffing with protection from subcontracting and automation. We need the increased productivity by new technology to be shared amongst the workers without loss of wages, not hoarded as increased profits for the employer. 

5. We need a guaranteed, defined path to full-time. We need an end to tiers and part-time discrimination. We reject part-time poverty. 

6. We need industry-wide master agreements. We need uniform expiration dates on contracts. We refuse to be whipsawed by the employers into settling for less. We need to unite the collective power of essential workers across industries. 

7. We need straightforward contracts communicated clearly to members. Our contracts must be specific and written in clear, everyday language, with translations available to non-English speaking workers. We need to vote on the full text of contracts, not on misleading and incomplete summaries, and only after adequate time has been allowed to study the contents.

8. We need democratic unions where every worker has a direct vote on all agreements that affect them. All negotiations with the employers should be carried out democratically with the rank and file informed and consulted at every step. We refuse closed-door bargaining, information brownouts, and secretive side bars. We need open bargaining with elected bargaining committees.

9. We need one member, one vote. We need democratic unions where all local, regional and international officers are elected by a direct vote of the members.

10. We need democratic unions where decisions about strike policy, finances, leadership and action are directly decided by the workers involved. The role of an international is to mobilize solidarity and respect and back up the decisions of the rank and file.

11. We need honest, militant union leaders. Our officers must have no privileges not enjoyed by the rank and file. Salary caps on top officers should be democratically determined by the rank and file. Union officers who get paid like corporate management think like corporate management.

12. We need first-day strike pay with real benefits. Workers need the resources to outlast the employers when taking militant action like strikes.

13. We need the right to strike, picket, honor other workers' picket lines and organize without repression by judges, police, National Guard, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), labor boards or any other governmental bodies acting on behalf of the employers.

14. We need healthcare for all, regardless of employment. Private healthcare undermines all workers’ ability to sustain strikes. Unions must lead the fight for universal healthcare. 

15. We declare that only solidarity and united action can defend our wages, working conditions and unions from destruction by the employers and their financial and governmental allies.

Our goal is one united democratic movement of all essential workers. We believe an injury to one is an injury to all. We believe that power stems from the shop floor, not from the union bureaucracy. As such, it is unjust for union officials to rule over our unions like kings, or for companies to rule over our lives.