The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) has more than 1.2 million members, most of whom worked during the pandemic in tough, gritty jobs in meatpacking plants, warehouses, and grocery stores. However, a small group of only 54 executive board members, mainly union staffers, will pick the next president of the union at its meeting in Chicago this weekend on May 13th.
A group of UFCW members, called Essential Workers for Democracy, has cried foul over the move.
“To win better union contracts — higher pay, better working conditions, better healthcare and pensions — we need a fighting union that can stand up, not cozy up, to the companies,” the group said in a statement. “We need commitments to coordinated bargaining, first day strike pay, and investment in organizing. But we can’t hold our leaders accountable if we can’t even vote on who those leaders are.”
At the 2023 UFCW convention, many members of Essential Workers for Democracy voted for a resolution, which would have allowed one member, one vote when it came to electing the union’s president.
The majority of the unions in the United States do not allow their presidents to be elected through direct elections.
In 2021, the UAW, under federal monitorship, was forced to allow members to vote on their members having the right to vote in direct elections for President. The UAW became one of the few unions along with the Teamsters and the Steelworkers to allow direct elections.
Now union democracy activists within the UFCW want the same right.
“We're in a fight in the United States over democracy. We're in the fight over whether we're going to become a fascist state,” says UFCW 3000 President Faye Guethne. “And democracy starts at home. It starts in the workplace. It starts in the community. And when workers fight to have a say in their workplace, they should also have a say in their union that they pay union dues to.”
