Rite Aid Warehouse Workers Win Tentative Contract
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The 500 workers at Rite Aid’s distribution center in Lancaster, Calif., overcame a relentless five-year anti-worker campaign to eventually gain a tentative contract and union recognition.
The new three-year deal, reached May 1, guarantees fair health insurance rates, job security, a worker voice in production standards and wage increases in each of the next three years.
“We’re excited about winning this victory, even if it took longer than it should have,” said Carlos “Chico” Rubio, a 10-year warehouse worker.
Mitch McConnell Found His Calling: Scrooge of the Year
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch “No, No, a thousand times No!” McConnell (R-Ky.) today won the role of the 2010 Scrooge of the Year. Voters selected McConnell in Jobs with Justice’s (JwJ) 11th annual contest to find the politician, CEO, corporation or politician who has done the most to “scrooge” workers in the spirit of Ebenezer.
It was a crowded field with half a dozen other candidates, but McConnell won handily with 42 percent of the vote. After all, he spent the year leading filibusters against unemployment insurance, job creation, health care reform, Wall Street reform, health care for 9/11 first responders, the DREAM Act, Social Security cost of living adjustments, collective bargaining rights for public safety officers and just about anything that might benefit working families.
Old Ebenezer—before he had the greed and nasty scared out of him by some otherworldly visitors—would be quite proud of McConnell’s victory. Says JwJ Executive Director Sarita Gupta:
We hope that by being elected national Scrooge of the Year, Sen. McConnell will see the “Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come” and understand the dire consequences that his actions will have for generations of Americans. Read the rest of this entry »
Workers Protest Rite Aid’s Corporate Greed, Disrespect of Workers’ Rights
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Rand Wilson of the AFL-CIO Field Staff reports on the Rite Aid National Day of Action, Dec. 15.
Workers, union activists and community supporters marched and took part in more than 40 actions at Rite Aid stores in 11 states yesterday as part of a National Day of Action to focus attention on the company’s corporate greed and disrespect for workers’ rights.
Rite Aid, the country’s third largest retail drugstore chain, has been stalling for more than two years on negotiating a first contract with employees at its massive Southwest Regional Distribution Center in Lancaster, Calif., where 550 workers joined the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in March 2008. The company is now demanding that workers pay exorbitant increases in their health care premiums.
Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the ILWU, which organized the Day of Action, said:
Rite Aid executives are taking millions of dollars for themselves–then telling employees to pay for management’s mistakes by gouging workers for health insurance. This kind of corporate greed is wrong; it’s ruining Rite Aid and wrecking America. Citizens across the country are volunteering to help Rite Aid workers stand up and fight back against corporate greed.
Vote for Who ‘Scrooged’ Workers the Most in JwJ’s Scrooge of the Year Contest
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The nominations are in and there are seven great—let’s rephrase that—mean, nasty, heartless candidates for the dishonor of winning Jobs with Justice’s (JwJ‘s) Scrooge of the Year contest.
Now in its11th year, the contest highlights the CEO, corporation or politician who has done the most to “scrooge” workers in the spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge before three ghosts scared the you-know-what out of him and he saw the error of his ways. But such a transformation is not likely from these Scrooge nominees.
Take a look at a short description of each, then click here for more details on their dastardly deeds and to vote for your Scrooge. The results will be announced Dec. 20.
- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was nominated for leading the Republican Party in aggressively blocking legislation that would benefit working people;
Oct. 29: Student Day of Action Against Rite Aid
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In eight cities across the country today, college students will visit their local Rite Aid drug store, not to pick up toiletries or prescriptions but to picket and protest the company’s persistent pattern of worker rights abuse.
The protests are part of the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) national day of action against Rite Aid, the country’s third largest retail drugstore chain. USAS International Campaigns Coordinator Teresa Cheng says students are especially concerned about employee abuse at Rite Aid’s massive Southwest Regional Distribution Center in Lancaster, Calif., where 550 workers are in the sixth year of a struggle to join union and bargain a contract.
Student activists will hold actions today outside Rite Aid stores in State College, Pa; Palo Alto, Calif.; Boston; Los Angeles; Ithaca, N.Y.; Seattle; Chapel Hill, N.C.; and Washington, D.C.
Workers Rally to Make It Right at Rite Aid
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Hundreds of Rite Aid workers and supporters from Pennsylvania, New York and California rallied this morning outside the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Harrisburg, Pa., to demand good jobs and a voice at work.
During the rally, Sylvia Estrada and Angel Warner, two workers from Rite Aid’s massive distribution center in Lancaster, Calif., described the five-year struggle by 550 employees to form a union.
We want to work with Rite Aid and grow this company. These jobs pay our bills. But we also want to be paid fairly and treated with respect. For that, we need Rite Aid to reach an agreement with our union [International Longshore and Warehouse Union].
“We’re standing with the Rite Aid workers to help them win the good jobs our communities need,” Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Richard Bloomingdale told the crowd.
Rite Aid’s Anti-Worker Tactics Show Need for Employee Free Choice
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Across the country, union members and allies are protesting Rite Aid’s unfair treatment of warehouse workers and demanding that Congress pass the Employee Free Choice Act to end management abuses and restore the freedom to bargain.
On Monday, supporters of the freedom to form unions gathered in seven cities, including outside a pharmacy industry conference in Boston, to demand that Rite Aid workers and all workers be able to form a union and bargain free of intimidation, coercion and illegal firing.
Rite Aid’s Wrong, Workers Tell Shareholders
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Rite Aid workers at the drug chain’s distribution center in Lancaster, Calif., took their years-long fight for justice to New York City yesterday, where they urged the company’s shareholders to fire management’s hired-gun, union-busting consultants.
At a Times Square rally, the workers got a boost of solidarity from their New York union brothers and sisters.
At the firm’s annual shareholder meeting, Angel Warner, a veteran Rite Aid employee and member of Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 26, charged Rite Aid with “abusive, disrespectful and illegal treatment” before and after more than 600 workers voted to join the IWLU in March 2008.
