Workers Win Case to Wear Black Lives Matter Buttons

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UFCW 3000 Press Release

For Immediate Release: May 3, 2023

Contact: Tom Geiger, 206-604-3421

Workers Win Case for Wearing Black Lives Matter Buttons on the Job –

Fred Meyer and QFC (both Kroger-owned stores) Must Allow Workers to Wear Their Buttons

In a clear statement of the rights of workers to wear buttons and other materials such as masks at work, as part of collective, concerted activity, the Administrative Law Judge, from the National Labor Relations Board Division of Judges in San Francisco today ruled in favor of UFCW 3000’s case for workers wearing Black Lives Matter buttons and ruled against Fred Meyer’s attempts to curtail that right.

Finding in favor of the Union’s core argument that the workers’ actions were protected under Federal labor law because racism is a workplace issue, Administrative Law Judge Mara-Louise Anzalone wrote in their decision that, “by collectively displaying the ‘Black Lives Matter’ message on their work uniforms, the employees in this case acted to advance their interest—as employees—to an affirmatively anti-racist, pro-civil rights, and pro-justice workplace.”

The judge’s ruling also struck down the Employers’ overly broad dress codes.

The ALJ’s decision essentially agreed with earlier findings in this case going back to the September of 2022 finding of Region 19 of the National Relations Labor Board (NLRB) that Fred Meyer and QFC violated federal labor law when they prohibited workers from wearing union-sponsored Black Lives Matter buttons. There was a lengthy trial before the ALJ when Kroger refused to reach a settlement agreement. The decision by the ALJ was issued today and is subject to appeal to the NLRB in Washington DC.

Sam Dancy outside of his QFC in the summer of 2020

“It feels good to win again! When we as workers speak out through these buttons and collectively say Black Lives Matter and then QFC and Fred Meyer said to take the buttons off, that was insulting and a violation of the law. We knew all along we had the right to call out social and racial injustice in the workplace and in our neighborhoods and this judge’s decision reiterates that right,” said Sam Dancy a Front End Supervisor at the Westwood Village QFC in West Seattle, WA who has worked for QFC for over 30 years. 

UFCW 3000 President Faye Guenther concluded, “It is important that workers’ rights and legal standards be protected. Kroger, the owner QFC and Fred Meyer continues to be a problem and needs to do a better job of hiring and promoting workers who are Black at every level of the company and making it clear that it will not tolerate racism from customers or employees.”

Background

After Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd on May 25, 2020, many UFCW 21 members working in grocery and retail stores chose to express their opposition to racism at work and in the community by wearing face masks (otherwise worn for protection from COVID) or other items bearing the Black Lives Matter slogan.

Although Kroger issued public statements expressing sympathy with the Black Lives Matter movement, managers at Kroger-owned stores in Western Washington started ordering UFCW 21 members to remove Black Lives Matter masks in August 2020.

UFCW 21 responded to the company’s Black Lives Matter ban by collaborating with Fred Meyer and QFC workers to distribute union-sponsored Black Lives Matter buttons with the UFCW 21 logo. When managers banned the Union buttons, UFCW 21 filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board. Kroger’s ban and the Union response received widespread local and national attention. In September of 2021, Region 19 of the NLRB ruled in favor of the UFCW 3000 grocery store workers. The case was unable to reach a settlement and therefore went to trial in April of 2022 before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) who today ruled in the favor of the workers and found Kroger’s Fred Meyer and QFC were in the wrong and had violated the workers’ rights. As a result of the ruling, the workers will be allowed to wear the buttons.

UFCW 3000 represents over 50,000 workers at grocery stores, retail, healthcare, and other industry jobs.

Grocery Store Workers Have Right to Wear Black Lives Matter Buttons

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For Immediate Release: September 17, 2021
Contact: Tom Geiger, UFCW 21, 206-604-3421

Grocery Store Workers Have Right to Wear Black Lives Matter Buttons

National Labor Relations Board Tells Kroger’s QFC and Fred Meyer to Reach Settlement or Change Policy

2020 Black Lives Matter Button UFCW locals and Teamsters and SEUI and WSNA.jpg

Seattle, WA -- Region 19 of the National Labor Relations Board has informed UFCW 21 of its finding that Fred Meyer and QFC – both Kroger companies – violated federal labor law when it prohibited workers from wearing union-sponsored Black Lives Matter buttons.

Specifically, Region 19 found merit in UFCW 21’s charges that Kroger violated the law by: 1) failing to bargain with the Union over a change in workplace conditions – in this case the practice of allowing the wearing of buttons at work; and 2) prohibiting workers from taking action together – in this case, by wearing Black Lives Matter messages – to protest racism in the workplace and in society, generally.

Region 19 will now seek a settlement agreement with Kroger, which would likely require a change to company policy. If a settlement cannot be reached, Region 19 would typically issue a formal complaint and a trial would be held before an Administrative Law Judge, whose ruling would be subject to an appeal to the NLRB in Washington D.C.

“This is very uplifting. When workers were trying to speak out through these buttons and collectively say Black Lives Matter and Kroger said to take the buttons off, that was an insult. This decision is welcome news in our work to bring attention to social and racial injustice in the workplace and in our neighborhoods”, said Sam Dancy a Front End Supervisor at the Westwood Village QFC in West Seattle, WA.

Motoko Kusanagi, a Front End Checker at the University Village QFC in Seattle reacted, “We wore the pins because it seemed like the right thing to do. My coworkers showed me their pins happily, letting me know they stood in solidarity with me and my family. One of the core values of the store is inclusion, so we did not think “Black Lives Matter” was a radical statement for this business. The amount of pushback we received for such a small showing of support still sits wrong with me to this day. I’m glad we could fight back.”

UFCW 21 President Faye Guenther concluded, “In the wake of this welcome action by the NLRB, we are calling on Kroger to respect workers’ rights and take meaningful steps to address racial inequities in Kroger workplaces. Among other things, Kroger needs to do a better job of hiring and promoting African Americans at every level of the company and making it clear that it will not tolerate racism from customers or employees.”

Background

After Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd on May 25, 2020, many UFCW 21 members working in grocery and retail stores chose to express their opposition to racism by wearing face masks (otherwise worn for protection from COVID) or other items bearing the Black Lives Matter slogan.

Although Kroger issued public statements expressing sympathy with the Black Lives Matter movement, managers at Kroger-owned stores in Western Washington started ordering UFCW 21 members to remove Black Lives Matter masks in June 2020.

 UFCW 21 responded to the company’s Black Lives Matter ban by collaborating with Fred Meyer and QFC workers to distribute union-sponsored Black Lives Matter buttons with the UFCW 21 logo. When managers banned the Union buttons, UFCW 21 filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board. Kroger’s ban and the Union response received widespread local and national attention.

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UFCW 21 represents over 46,000 workers at grocery stores, retail, health care and other industry jobs.

 

Unions Push Back on Labor Relations Board’s Anti-Democracy Decision

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For Immediate Release: March 23, 2020
Contacts:
Tom Geiger, UFCW 21, 206-604-3421
David Groves, WA State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, 206-434-1301

Unions Push Back on Labor Relations Board’s Anti-Democracy Decision: Call for All Mail-Ballot Elections to Improve Worker Rights and Protect Health and Safety

Labor organizations across Washington State today are expressing outrage in reaction to the National Labor Relations Board (Board) postponing of all union recognition elections until at least April 2nd. They are also calling on the Board to revoke the decision, reschedule all such elections, and make all elections become all mail-in ballot only.

Recently, the National Labor Relations Board (Board) postponed all union recognition (or RC) elections until at least April 2nd. We strongly oppose this unilateral action undermining workplace democracy, and we call for immediate revocation of this action and immediate rescheduling of all RC elections, by mail ballot, as soon as they can be scheduled. Additionally, we call for the expediting of mandatory mail ballot procedures for all RC elections going forward.

“The Board’s decision shows that what was meant to be a balancing force weighing the interests of workers and employers is a broken system. The Board unilaterally revoked workers’ rights to organize by this one action,” said Faye Guenther, President of UFCW 21. “Any insistence that mail balloting require approval from employers amounts to giving a veto card to all employers to terminate any unionizing effort at any time.”

Further harm to workers right to organize result from the decision because the standard that the Board has typically used (so-called “laboratory conditions”) in union elections will be erased because without the prospect of a union election workers will be reluctant to begin any new organizing drive. What would be the point of beginning to organize if you knew the employer could simply deny the right to a vote? Without the right to vote being protected and expected, there is no democracy.

“Now is the time for increased worker involvement in their workplace health and safety, not a muzzling of workers,” said Larry Brown, President of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. “Democracy in the workplace where workers can be assured of a safe work environment, the ability to stay home from work when sick, and their unfettered right to advocate for themselves and for the public they serve, is paramount not just for their well-being, but for the well-being of everyone in America.”

Going beyond the issue of workers’ intertwined rights to self-determination and to advocate for their own health and safety, this attack on these rights creates an ongoing threat to the health and safety of the general public.  For example, health care workers who are denied collective bargaining rights are less effective advocates for their patients than those who can be confident that if they speak up for patient safety their union will stand with them. Employers, pressured by intense market conditions, are endangering workers and the general public. Worker self-organization is one of the most powerful public health tools available, and it can produce immediate on-the-ground public health improvements. By example, unionized workers have already won agreements with employers that modify retail store conditions and health care facility standards that directly and immediately benefit the general public and the workers, resulting in immediate public health improvements.

Additional Information that would make workplaces safer for people working there and the general public:

  • More worker whistleblowers than ever.

  • We need workers to go home if they are sick more than ever.

  • Workers in industries such as retail grocery and pharmacies are in fact first responders in our COVID-19 world, just as police, fire and healthcare workers are.  

  • To make matters even worse, we have evidence of examples where employers (Florida and Washington State and New York)* refused to agree to mail balloting--in essence their veto of any election--when the Board was willing to conduct mail balloting just prior to the Board’s blanket postponement. In each of these examples, the employers refused to agree to mail ballots even as they scheduled mandatory, anti-union, captive audience meetings with workers. And this at a time when most local and state governments are strongly recommending, if not mandating, the elimination of people meeting together in confined spaces in order to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

 We Demand:

  • Immediate rescheduling of all currently postponed RC elections; these to be conducted by mail ballot. These new elections ought to commence as early as practicable, but in no case later than April 1.

  • Elimination of any previous rulemaking or precedent that requires employer agreement in order to conduct mail balloting.

  • Development of new ways for workers to organize in workplaces, including voluntary recognition and other methods that are outside the traditional RC election model.

  • If the Federal Government fails to restart NLRB elections immediately, then State Governments should proceed with elections.

  • Consideration of any special new rules--given the new COVID-19 realities--intended to make certain that workers’ address information and other procedural details are conducive to conducting fair and democratic mail balloting.

  • Immediate mandatory postings in all relevant workplaces of the intent to reschedule elections by mail balloting to inform workers that their democratic rights are being restored followed by subsequent postings indicating the date/time/particulars of all rescheduled union RC elections.

  • Prohibition on all employer mandatory captive audience meetings. These meetings put workers and management alike in unsafe conditions. Also, given the new restrictions on union visiting workers’ residences due to COVID-19, the Board must immediately prohibit all captive audience meetings. Absent this, the union’s ability to communicate with workers is essentially eliminated while the employer anti-union activity would continue without any counter-balance.

  • Special attention to all union-filed or worker-filed complaints relating to retaliation for workers advocating for workplace health and safety and public safety in the context of union elections and/or other NLRA-protected activity.

  • Immediate staffing up of NLRB offices--remotely--in order to expedite the above matters.

Specific employers can be identified and interviews with union spokespeople can be arranged for reporters upon request.

Labor unions signing on include at the time of the release:

WA State Labor Council / MLK County Labor Council / AFT WA / WSNA / UFCW 21 / UFCW 4 / UFCW 365 / UFCW 1439 / UFCW 368a / UFCW 555 / UFCW 7 / Teamsters 38 / SEIU Local 49 / SEIU Local 503 / SEIU 925 / SEIU Healthcare 1199 NW / UNITE HERE Local 8 / PROTEC 17

“I am so disappointed on Lourdes for not allowing us to have mail in ballot.

We have worked so hard to unify our departments and be ready for our election on April 2nd. We are not going to allowed them to take our right to organize. We want our union and our right to a say in our working conditions. With this Covid-19 Crisis our management can do better by us and allowing us to at least to vote. We need our job protections, our safety and fair wages. I work in Central Supply and we are losing hours since our department is not emergency care. With the Union we would be protected instead of at the mercy of Lourdes.” - Maria Hinojosa, Lourdes Medical Center in Pasco.

“I’ve been working at Providence Centralia for over twenty years and really feel like we’re not being treated fairly anymore.

We don’t make what other people who work in similar positions make. We have had no cost of living raise in eight years. We don’t get step raises. We get merit raises, but it’s usually a small percentage that’s not nearly enough. They’re trying to shift our benefits to the state, which means taking away all our EIB (Extended Illness Bank) hours. And they just make changes to our jobs without consulting us. The last thing they did was take away one day each pay period for all HUCs, which was a big deal to us. And before that they cut HUC workers at night, which puts our patients in greater danger. If we’d had a union, I don’t think they would have been able to do those things. 

If we had somebody to back us, we’d be sitting in a different position. I don’t think it’s right that we’re not able to vote in the union right now. We’ve waited a long time for this, and I don’t think people should put it on the back burner. We’re motivated and want to act now. 

It’s time for us to be treated like we’re part of the business, not just people who are working there. It’s really hard to do our job. We should be supported and treated like we’re an important part of the team. We help make the hospital run. The nurses, who are union, get treated with respect. But those of us who aren’t unionized don't as much. That’s why it’s so important that we’re able to have a union election right now.” - Donita Letteer, Health Unit Coordinator, Providence Centralia 

"I've worked at the Providence hospital in Centralia, Washington for 25 years. Providence used to be a good employer, providing lots of perks and very good benefits. However, lately they become less like a family, farming out lots of the jobs in HR, payroll, and administration. That means that there's no one left here on campus to actually care about the little guy such as myself.

So many of the things that made this a really great place to work are gone now. We used to have sick time so we didn't have to decide between taking a vacation with our family or taking care of our family and ourselves when we were sick, which leads to more people showing up to work sick and everyone else getting sick as well. We used to be able to work a holiday and take our holiday pay for a double time-and-a-half pay out, which made working a holiday not so bad. There was a time when we would get substantial raises. Now we're lucky to get one or one and a half percent, even if we've done exemplary work for the year. Even little employee enrichment things like scrub sales and book sales in the lobby are gone now.

I don't believe they really care about their small potatoes employees anymore. They're more interested in their corporate image and advancing their administration. If we do nothing, this is going to continue on a downward trend until things become unbearable. I believe that the union is the only way that we're going to be able to stand our ground and maybe even recoup a few benefits.

I would like to add that during the coronavirus crisis it has been easy to see how little they care about the problems we are going through. The schools are closed and there's nowhere to send our children, but we cannot stay home either. And if they get sick or we get sick, we're not allowed to use our extended illness bank (EIB). We still have to use our vacation time. I have noticed that many workers are struggling with this. If they had daycare before, they would have been using it now.  Some folks are in a real pickle. I don't see anyone in the administration trying to help with that or even acknowledging that it's a problem. They just chastise us if we use too much PPE equipment. It makes me wonder how much we are really worth to them. I think the answer is not much. Now they're telling us that we're going to have to take voluntary days off with no compensation unless we want to use our vacation. I think now more than ever we need the union to step in and help us with this. We have no recourse, no way to fight for ourselves, and it seems that we're getting stepped on more and more. I am writing to ask you to allow us to proceed with our union vote." -Diana Jennings, Mammography Technician, Providence Centralia