MONTANA BARGAINING UNIT STANDS FIRM AGAINST WORKPLACE VIOLENCE

October 27, 2006

Montana members from Locals 4 and 8 wear their stickers to show solidarity and support of the bargaining campaign.

After two more days of negotiations on October 24 and 25, members of Montana UFCW Local Unions 4 and 8 find that negotiators from Albertsons (SuperValu), Smith’s (Kroger), and Safeway still refuse to take them and their union seriously.  The employers’ indifference to members’ concerns even extends to worker safety in cases involving criminal violence in the workplace. 

In one instance, a member was accosted and handcuffed at work at gunpoint by a fellow worker who was hired with a criminal record.  Because she did not suffer a physical injury, the incident was not covered under Montana’s Workers’ Compensation law.  Albertsons, her employer, promised to help her, but never did.  She ended up using her own vacation time to recover, and spent more than $1,200 of her own money on medical care and prescriptions.  To remedy this situation, the union proposed that the victim be treated under the contract with Workers’ Compensation-type standards. The proposal fell on deaf ears.

A score of rank-and-file Bargaining Committee members from both Locals traveled from around the state to hear once again the companies’ “We’re not interested!” mantra whenever the UFCW proposed contract improvements for their members.  Albertsons (SuperValu), Smith’s (Kroger), and Safeway, have contracts in Montana covering more than 30 stores and 1,100 members. The employers’ non-proposals for new collective bargaining agreements show just how unnecessarily difficult and contentious these wealthy companies have chosen to make the negotiations.

The companies have attempted to push the union immediately into economic issues, hoping to bypass contract language problems.  They consider these matters as mere “filler and fluff,” despite the fact that these are of major concern to members and the union.  Considered unimportant by the employers are such matters as seniority and sick leave.

Wearing her UFCW “Affordable Healthcare for Health Communities” sticker at the bargaining table, one Bargaining Committee member said, “Like it or not, these guys will just have to learn that they’re going to have to deal with us.  Because we’re not going away!”