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UFCW Locals 588 & 1288 Team Up To Strengthen Bargaining Clout
~ Sacramento-area unit joins Fresno, making it one of largest in West.
April 7, 2006 · Sacramento Bee
In a bid to increase their bargaining power, Sacramento-area grocery workers have ratified a pact that will merge their union with its Fresno counterpart, creating one of the largest locals in the West.
Members of the Roseville-based United Food and Commercial Workers Local 588 and Fresno's Local 1288 voted overwhelmingly for the deal, with 85 percent supporting a May 1 merger, said UFCW spokeswoman Ellen Anreder. Local 588 has about 23,000 members; Fresno's 1288 has 8,000.
The combined unions will create a 39-county entity called Local 8-Golden State and speak for more than 31,000 members in an area stretching from Fresno to the Oregon border and from Sonoma County to the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.
Local 588 President Jacques Loveall, who will head the new local, said Thursday that the merger gives Northern California grocery workers new clout.
"Now is the time to prepare for our next round of negotiations," Loveall said in a statement. "When we sit at the bargaining table, we intend to be prepared with unprecedented size and strength."
Loveall could not be reached for comment Thursday.
The merger is part of what experts say is a growing trend by labor unions in response to consolidation in the grocery industry. Bigger grocery chains have more resources to hold out during a strike, the thinking goes, so unions must bulk up to increase their leverage.
"The only way the union will have leverage to bargain in the new economy is if they have coordination in the state and nationally," said Ken Jacobs of the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center.
The last round of contract talks in 2003 included a five-month strike in Southern California that ended with workers accepting major concessions.
Northern California workers didn't strike, but they did accept some cutbacks, including out-of-pocket medical deductibles for the first time in Local 588's history.
The grocery chains insisted that the concessions were vital to staying competitive with non-union grocery sellers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Loveall, who comes up for re-election in 2008, said he envisions more mergers in the future. "We believe the membership of UFCW would be best served if there were one local union serving the state of California," he said in an interview before the vote.