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Local 7 News Updates...
THURSDAY AUGUST 26, 2010 there will be a Town Hall Meeting about the public workshop being held the next day by the Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Town Hall meeting will be at the Marriott in Fort Collins, Colorado beginning at 7:00 pm. The staff of UFCW Local 7 will be in attendance and we encourage our members to attend.
The Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture will hold a public workshop in Fort Collins, Colorado on August 27, 2010 to discuss competition and regulatory issues in the agriculture industry. The staff of UFCW Local 7 will be in attendance at this workshop also and encourage our members to join us.
Colorado State University, Lory Student Center - Main Ballroom
1101 Centre Avenue Mall, Fort Collins Colorado
9:00 a.m., Friday, August 27, 2010
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND USDA ANNOUNCE REGISTRATION
FOR AUGUST 27 LIVESTOCK WORKSHOP IN COLORADO
Workshop to be Held at Colorado State University in Fort Collins
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today additional details for the August 27, 2010, public workshop in Fort Collins, Colo., which will examine competition in the livestock industry. The workshop will be held at Colorado State University, the main ballroom of the Lory Student Center, 1101 Centre Avenue Mall, Fort Collins..
This is the fourth in a series of five workshops intended to promote dialogue among interested parties and foster learning with respect to competition and regulatory issues in agriculture. The first workshop was held in March in Ankeny, Iowa, with a focus on row crops and hogs. The second workshop focused on issues in the poultry industry and was held in Normal, Ala. The third workshop focused on issues in the dairy industry and was held in Madison, Wis.
The workshops, which were first announced by Attorney General Eric Holder and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Aug. 5, 2009, are the first joint Department of Justice/USDA workshops ever to be held to discuss competition and regulatory issues in the agriculture industry.
Attendance at the workshops is free and open to the public. The general public and media interested in attending the Colorado workshop should register at http://www.conferences.colostate.edu/LiveStockWorkshop.
The workshop will begin with opening remarks from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. After opening remarks, Attorney General Holder and Secretary Vilsack will participate in a roundtable discussion with Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Christine Varney. Federal and state officials from Colorado have been invited to participate in the workshop. There will be public testimony from those attending the workshop and panels will feature ranchers, academics, processors and other industry representatives.
Additional details on the schedule and panelists will be provided at a later date. For further information, including submitted public comments and transcripts for past workshops, please visit the Antitrust Division’s agriculture workshop website at www.justice.gov/atr/public/workshops/ag2010/index.htm or contact agriculturalworkshops@usdoj.gov.
The Justice Department and USDA will hold the next public workshop on margins in agriculture in Washington in December.
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U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
Gina Talamona
202-514-2007 |
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Office of Communications
Jim Brownlee
202-720-4623 |
Click here for additional information regarding the workshop.
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 Kaiser Worker-Negotiators Get Two Year,
All-Gains National TA.
1536 Colorado Region Kaiser Professionals Covered
Local 7 Kaiser Members Get Raises, Mantenance of Benefits, More
Wheat Ridge, CO. June 17, 2010)—Colorado Region Kaiser professional workers got a day-long look at a new tentative national agreement from members of their negitating team Wednesday, and smiled and nodded in agreement at what they saw.
 “They like it,” said Joan Heller, a member of the Colorado worker-negotiating team that reached the tentative agreement with the health care giant.
Heller says there is plenty to like for the 1536 Colorado Region Kaiser professionals.
The national agreement calls for a three percent across-the-board increase in October 2010 and another three percent across-the-board increase in October, 2011.
The Kaiser workers already received a two percent increase in April, 2010, resulting in a total five percent increase in wages in 2010.
The new agreement also maintains current health care cost and coverage, (maintenance of benefits) a huge plus in a climate where many employers are raising health care premiums and co-pays for their workers.
“The Kaiser agreement is all gains and no losses for Colorado workers,” Heller said. She is a doctor of optometry at the Kaiser Center Point Facility in Aurora.
The agreement covers Registered Nurses, Nurse Practitioners, Registered Pharmacists, Physical Therapists, Physicians Assistants, Medical Technologists, Behavioral Health Professionals, and many other professionals.
 “We give Kaiser patients the best possible care, so it’s great to see Kaiser values our skills and dedication,” said negotiating team member Alma Navarro. She is a registered pharmacist at the Kaiser Rock Creek facility in Lafayette.
Colorado Kaiser professional employees are represented by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 in Wheat Ridge.
Kaiser Permanente professionals work in a unique “partnership” with the company that gives them a strong voice with their supervisors and managers and contributes to the decision-making process from the clinic up to senior management.
The goal of the partnership is to provide the highest quality medical care in the world, with the patient always at the center of medical decisions.
Health care experts and even President Barack Obama have hailed this unionized organization as a model for health care for the future.
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Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions
Delegate Conference March 14, 2010
Left to right, back row: Barb Pederson, Tony Johnson, Helen Spiegel, Meg Tannenhill, Judy Jacobson.
Next Row: Wanda Titus, Gina Duran, Cleesie Miles, Lisa Harris, Joan Heller, Linda Focht, Pam Howard, Nicky Sassaman.
Front row: Nate Bernstein, Debra Little, Roberta Nunemaker, Tony Caliendo, Tom Merry
NEW!
Wyoming Safeway Workers Reach Tentative Deal with Corporation
First Votes Laramie, July 1, 2. Cheyenne, ZJuly 2,3. July 2-3.
Signing Bonus, Insurance, Pensions and Raises Equal to Colorado Workers
Agreement Covers More than 600 Safeway Workers in Eight Wyoming Communities.
Worker-Negotiator: “We did good. We got the same pension benefits and raises as Colorado, the same improved health insurance, and a signing bonus, too."
Cheyenne, Wyoming. June 29, 2010)—Wyoming Safeway workers reached a tentative agreement with the company Tuesday afternoon in Cheyenne. The worker-negotiating committee, made up of Safeway workers from around the state, unanimously recommended ratification of the agreement.
The new 52-month contract affects more than 600 workers. A ratification vote for workers around the state will be set soon.
After months of negotiations, the workers achieved their top goal…getting the same pension benefits as their Colorado counterparts.
“The pension deal is huge,” said Tommy O’Reilly, a negotiating team member. He is also on the Executive Board of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, which represents the Wyoming workers. “Now our pension is the same as Colorado’s, and that’s great,” he said.
The workers also achieved another goal…a health care plan that gives Wyoming Safeway workers an improved insurance package like the one Colorado workers fought for in their new contracts earlier this year.
Those improvements include expanded “wellness” care that consists of 100% payment for preventative care coverage, like colonoscopies and mammograms, well-baby checkups and adult annual physical exams.
The insurance plan negotiated by the Safeway workers will also significantly lower the cost of co-pays for “maintenance drugs.” Those drugs are used to treat long-term diseases like hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes. In addition, the families of newly hired workers will be eligible to join the insurance plan after one year.
“You have no idea how big that preventative care is to Safeway workers,” O'Reilly said.
Top journeyman workers will get hourly raises of 30 cents per hour and an additional 25 cents per hour for the next three years. Courtesy clerks will get a dime-an-hour-per-year raise...the same as Colorado.
Wyoming Safeway workers also will get a signing bonus equal to their Colorado counterparts. Full time workers will get $1,000, part time workers $500. Workers with less seniority or experience will get less.
The workers also got a commitment from Safeway to start employees' pay at least at the state minimum wage.
"We did good. We got the same pension and raises as Colorado, the same improved health insurance, and a signing bonus, too. We wanted the same benefits as Colorado, and we got them," said Tammy Baker, a Casper Safeway employee who is the senior member of the worker negotiating team.
"Once Safeway said we get the same deal as Colorado, the worker committee voted unanimously to recommend the offer to the members, she added.
The new tentative agreement covers Safeway workers at ten stores in eight Wyoming communities, represented by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 from Denver in the talks.
While all negotiation decisions are made by a committee of workers representing the stores, negotiators complimented Local 7 President Kim Cordova for her leadership in the talks. Cordova took over as president of Local 7 in January.
Sheridan worker-negotiator Jackie Newell, who has been pushing for equal pay for her store said, "I just wish we had Kim fighting for us years earlier."
UFCW Local 7 represents workers at two stores in Cheyenne, two in Casper, and one store in Laramie, Douglas, Wheatland, Lander, Riverton and Sheridan.
Local 7 earlier wrapped up three-year contracts with Colorado Safeway, King Soopers and Albertsons stores.
UFCW Local 7 is the largest labor organization in Colorado and Wyoming, with 23,000 members, mostly in the grocery, food production and health care business.
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