Let's Make It Happen

This is the best time in the last fifty years for the union people to get better contracts and for the nonunion workers to get their first union contracts. The stars have alined in the workers’ favor with unemployment at its lowest and lots of jobs not being filled. There are lots of jobs not being filled. There are lots of low-end jobs out there ready to be filled so now is the time for the $15 to $24 hour wage to be established. If employees don’t receive this then they should strike like the food workers—essential workers—at Ralph’s, Albertsons, Vons, and Pavilions. The owners offered employees a 60 cent per hour increase. The workers want $5 per hour. This walk out would be grocery clerks, meat cutters, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. They are represented by seven locals of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union with 47,000 workers in all. Albertsons owns Safeway, which became unionized beginning in 1935. Despite Albertsons making better-than-expected quarterly net profits with an increase of 243% from the prior year, the company decided to raise prices during a pandemic when the average person was struggling. In 2021, this same company spent $1.2 billion on capital expenditures and paid $149 million in dividends. It looks like they have their contracts close together so they can strike together. Strength in numbers. Then there is Starbucks, who, I hope the employees are watching how the union works and get all of their shops into the unions. Next, there is Amazon. I know the unions are working on it. This could be the year of the union’s comeback. Let’s make it happen.