Posts Tagged: UFCW Local 1625

Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) at the Allegro Nursing Home voted to join UFCW Local 1625.

Last week, Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) at the Allegro Nursing Home in St. Petersburg, Fla., voted ‘Union Yes’ to join the 7,000 members of the UFCW Local 1625. Thirty Certified Nursing Assistants on staff came together to form a union in order to improve working conditions at Allegro.

“I am so proud of my team today. We stood up to management’s efforts to intimidate and divide us, and together, we won,” said Eleanor Mitchell, CNA, who has worked for Allegro for 25 years. “With a union, we now have the power to shape a better future at Allegro.”

An election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board showed strong support for a union, with more than 90 percent of votes returned in favor of the union.

“The courage shown by these workers is extraordinary. These Certified Nursing Assistants are standing up for the dignity of all workers in the caretaking professions,” said Ed Chambers, President of UFCW Local 1625 headquartered in Lakeland, Fla.

The 30 CNAs were able to form a unit made up of a single job classification following a 2011 decision by the National Labor Relations Board in Specialty Healthcare and Rehabilitation of Mobile. This decision permitted CNAs to form union bargaining units by ruling that CNAs as “readily identifiable as a group” and as sharing a “community of interest.”

The workers will now begin negotiating with Allegro for their first union contract and seek to establish a more fair and transparent schedule for raises and better working conditions.

The Service Trades Council Unions and Walt Disney World Resort in Florida have ratified an agreement for nearly 30,000 workers. The tentative deal includes wage increases, freezes employees’ health care costs, and protects workers defined benefit pension plans.

The Service Trades Council Unions are made up of five different unions: Teamsters, IATSE, Transportation Communication Workers/IAM / UNITE HERE and the UFCW. Six thousand members of UFCW Local 1625 work in merchandise, flowers, and banquets. One thousand workers paraded near Downtown Disney earlier this summer to demonstrate their enthusiasm for a new contract.

The agreement lifts wages by $0.47 retroactively to March 30, 2014 for all merchandise employees at the top of the wage scale, and will increase by .70 over the next 25 months. Workers who currently earn below the top rate will receive retroactive increases between .50 and .97 and earn 1.00 over the next 25 months.

The employer had proposed converting the current defined benefit pension plan to a 401(k) plan, but dropped the proposal. Workers also bargained to keep health care costs the same, and  will not be required to increase their health care contributions until January 2016. “Any time you can win a wage increase like this and not have to give it back in the form of healthcare contributions, it is a huge win for the membership,” said Ed Chambers, President of UFCW Local 1625 and negotiator for Service Trades Council.

The Council also won bargaining rights for more than 250 non-union part-time banquet servers.