Monthly Archives: April 2016

Last week, 12 workers in the dietary department at the Woodland Grove Health and Rehabilitation Center in Jacksonville, Fla., voted overwhelmingly to join UFCW Local 1625 for a voice on the job. Local 1625 represents over 100 health care facilities in Florida.

“We were tired of the favoritism when it came to raises and working conditions,” said Sha Terri Frazer, a dietary worker. “Only until we reached out to the union did management start talking to us about the problems.”

A few days before the victory at the Woodland Grove Health and Rehabilitation Center, 105 workers at Lanier Terrace, another nursing home in Jacksonville, were granted recognition to be represented by Local 1625.

“Every time a non-union nursing home chooses to be represented by Local 1625, we increase our bargaining power for the whole industry throughout Florida,” said UFCW Local 1625 President Ed Chambers. “We have been able to directly correlate union density in the health care field with improved wages, benefits, and working conditions. Over half of our unionized nursing homes are now participating in union benefit plans, including pension and medical insurance, which signifies our strength in the industry.”

On April 15, Making Change at Walmart announced the release of a national television ad, along with coordinated actions in over 75 locations, to discourage customers from spending their tax refunds at Walmart because of the company’s use of offshore tax havens.

The ad aired on tax day, which was April 18 this year. At the same time, over 75 actions took place at post offices and Walmart stores across the country, including those in Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C.

Last year, Americans for Tax Fairness released a report detailing how Walmart has at least 76 billion dollars in assets placed in subsidiaries in places like Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands, and Barbados. Last week, Oxfam released an analysis of the 50 largest U.S. corporations, finding that Walmart ranked among the worst in terms of number of subsidiaries in tax havens.

“It is well-documented that Walmart has billions stashed in offshore tax havens, presumably to avoid paying American taxes. A company like that doesn’t deserve one cent of your tax refund,” said Jess Levin, communications director for Making Change at Walmart. “We’ll be going from post office to post office to spread the message that while hard-working Americans are waiting in line to file their taxes, Walmart is finding ways to avoid paying theirs.”