Posts Tagged: UFCW Local 770

On the day before Thanksgiving, El Super workers at seven unionized locations in Southern California decided to strike the company over unfair labor practices. Picket lines were established at 4 a.m. asking consumers to do their Thanksgiving shopping elsewhere.

El Super union members have been working without a new and fair contract since September 2013.

In the face of court action and a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) trial, the company returned to the table in August of this year, after more than a year and half absence. They returned, however, to engage in bad faith bargaining in violation of federal law.

El Super has refused to respond to repeated requests for information critical to “good faith” negotiations.  The company’s unfair labor practices include its failures to process grievances, to give information necessary to enforce standards such as sick leave, and to provide the union with information necessary to good faith bargaining over key issues, including healthcare.

In response to its unlawful behavior, UFCW members who work for El Super have elected to exercise their right to go on an unfair labor practice strike to protest this company’s deplorable behavior.

Actor Edward James Olmos joined striking El Super workers, “I support the workers’ right to bargain a fair contract at El Super and will join in supporting their boycott of El Super until they get the respect that they deserve.”

“El Super’s Mexico-based parent company – Grupo Comercial Chedraui – made over $100 million in profits last year,” said UFCW Local 770 President Ricardo Icaza. “UFCW members contributed greatly to the company’s success and we authorized this unfair labor practice strike because it’s high time that El Super stopped its unlawful stalling tactics and sat down in good faith and negotiated a contract that rewards our members for their hard work.”

Wednesday’s strike occurred one week after a dozen people were arrested during a nonviolent civil disobedience in front of El Super’s East LA store. The day after the arrests, El Super resumed negotiations with UFCW for two days, but the company continued to unlawfully deprive the union of information key to bargaining progress and our union members’ core concerns.

Fermin Rodriguez, a cashier at El Super Store #13, who won back his job with back pay after the NLRB agreed that his termination violated federal law, said, “For more than two years, my coworkers and I have been fighting to win a 40-hour guarantee for full-time workers, adequate paid sick leave, seniority protections, fair wages, affordable health benefits, the right to organize without retaliation, and respect. We wanted to achieve a fair contract at the bargaining table without a strike, but this company persists in unlawful conduct denying us of our rights under federal law. El Super only responds to direct pressure. El Super workers will not tolerate any more of the company’s illegal behavior.”

On November 18, more than 500 El Super workers, labor, community and clergy leaders, staged a nonviolent civil disobedience and candlelight vigil at the busy “Five Points” intersection near El Super’s East L.A. location.

Protesters took to the streets for the second time in less than a month to ratchet up the pressure on El Super grocery stores decision-makers on the eve of scheduled contract negotiations. More than a dozen protesters were arrested after forming a prayer circle in the center of Cesar E. Chavez Ave. after the Los Angeles police department issued an order to disperse.

El Super #17 cashier Flora Castaneda was among the protesters arrested. “Change demands that people like me must stand up. I don’t want to get arrested, but if we don’t stand up for ourselves, everything will stay the same,” said Castaneda, a single mother of three children, who has worked at El Super for more than eleven years.

Castaneda is one of approximately 600 UFCW union members who work for the El Super chain. For more than two years, she and her unionized coworkers have been seeking an agreement with El Super that ensures a 40-hour guarantee for full-time workers, adequate paid sick leave, seniority protections, fair wages, affordable health benefits, the right to organize without retaliation, and respect in the workplace. 

Last July, El Super entered into a settlement agreement with the U.S. Government to resolve the National Labor Relations Board’s allegation that it violated workers’ federally protected labor rights. The company agreed to return to the bargaining table and negotiate in good faith with UFCW.

However, since returning to the negotiations with UFCW on August 18, after more than a year of stalling, El Super hasn’t made a significant progress towards an acceptable deal. They have agreed to negotiate a total of five days, over four months. Indeed, El Super has even failed to meet its legal obligation to provide information necessary to bargaining.

Grupo Commercial Chedraui is Mexico’s third largest retailer. Chedraui operates over 200 markets in Mexico, and 52 El Super stores in the U.S. In 2014, it earned nine-figure profits. Yet, Chedraui’s largely immigrant workforce in the U.S. toils in jobs that undermine basic industry labor standards.

A multinational coalition filed complaints Nov. 12 with the federal government alleging Chedraui is violating the North American Free Trade Agreement and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development guidelines by engaging in alleged “workers’ rights abuses” in the U.S. and Mexico.

The NAFTA-related complaint against Chedraui Commercial Group was filed by the UFCW in California, Frente Autentico del Trabajo, in Mexico, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, in California, and the Project on Organizing, Development, Education and Research, a Mexico and U.S.-based NGO focused in Latin America.