Senior Safeway employees celebrate completion of 10% union wage increase!
But Safeway remains stubborn, unreasonable, and unfair about 3,000 junior employees who are also struggling with the affordability crisis…
As previously reported, Safeway has agreed to implement the second 5% wage increase for top-rated and overscale employees on August 11, 2024. We are holding our breath, and we hope they will make good on their representation.
The 10% union wage increase that senior Safeway employees are celebrating represents the largest wage increase they have seen in decades. For thousands of employees, that’s a $2-3 per hour wage increase.
The increase comes after an extensive fight in which your union engaged on your behalf.
How did we get here?
Last summer, a Bargaining Committee made up of union representatives and Safeway union members, led by President Hesse, began negotiating with Safeway around language in your collective agreement. The “Wage Reopener” language indicated that the Committee and the Company would meet to negotiate changes to your wages.
At every meeting with the Company, your union and Bargaining Committee pushed Safeway to discuss the affordability crisis and increase wages for all Safeway employees to Stop the Squeeze and make life more affordable.
President Hesse makes a point about the outrageous cost of groceries at the Safeway Wage Reopener hearing in 2023.
“Unfortunately, the Company refused to discuss the forty-year-highs in inflation you continue to experience,” noted President Thomas Hesse. “What’s worse, they outright dismissed our demands to implement wage increases for all employees. Pleas from Safeway employees fell on deaf ears.”
Unable to come to an agreement, we proceeded to something called Final Offer Selection. In this process, both the Company and your Bargaining Committee submitted proposals to arbitrator Mia Norrie about how much wage increases should be.
Your Bargaining Committee worked very hard to put together the most compelling case possible, including securing lawyers like Harold Caley, who specializes in arbitrations of this nature, and well-known Canadian economist Jim Stanford to provide expert analysis around the need for substantial increases. President Hesse made a comprehensive presentation to the arbitrator.
In the end, Arbitrator Norrie chose your union’s argument which supported a 5% wage increase in 2023 and a 5% increase in 2024. In her decision, Norrie noted that while your Committee’s proposal was “aggressive”, the Company’s proposed increases were “significantly inferior”.
Local 401 is unapologetic about fighting aggressively for its members.
Despite announcing its intention to challenge the decision in court, Safeway also acknowledged that they would give top-rated and overscale employees the full 10% increase due to them in 2023 and 2024 after your union pressured them for a clear answer on the matter.
What about employees who were left out?
“While we are excited about this win for top-rated and overscale employees, your union knows that the award did not adequately address the challenges facing 3,000 employees who did not see those increases,” said Secretary Treasurer Richelle Stewart.
President Hesse and Treasurer Stewart with a longtime Safeway employee.
Although all Safeway employees remain able to move up a union-negotiated wage scale that outpaces anything you would see in non-union retail workplaces, we also know all Safeway union members need to see further increases.
Thankfully, we go back into bargaining with Safeway next year in 2025, and this will be some of the most aggressive bargaining we have ever coordinated. At the top of the list will be substantial wage increases for ALL Safeway employees in the coming years to Stop the Squeeze and make life more affordable for you!
One of the things we are doing to prepare for those negotiations is holding our Ready, Set, Go! Bargaining Conference in November of this year.
Click here to apply to attend our Bargaining Conference on November 12-15, 2024, and find out how you can help us win the increases you need!
Retail Workers Rising
Finally, we have started a new campaign aimed at highlighting the challenges facing retail workers in today’s difficult economic climate.
“If you are struggling with skyrocketing costs from gas to groceries and getting other bills paid, take our Retail Workers Rising Survey to tell us your story,” said President Thomas Hesse. “Help us Stop the Squeeze you and your family are facing!”
Click here to take the Retail Workers Rising survey!
Know that your union is fighting every single day to build better workplaces and a better world where we can all afford to make ends meet.
In solidarity,
Thomas Hesse, President
Richelle Stewart, Secretary Treasurer
UFCW Local 401
Posted on: August 09,2024