UFCW STANDS WITH MEDICAL CANNABIS RETAIL WORKERS

Demands an End to U.S. Attorney’s Misguided Enforcement Action

(Washington, D.C.) – The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the nation’s largest retail worker organization, demands an immediate end to the U.S. Attorney’s misguided prosecution of operators of small dispensaries of legal medical cannabis in California.

In the past year, thousands of hardworking and taxpaying medical cannabis industry workers have joined together with the UFCW in various states in order to protect their jobs in this emerging industry. In today’s economy, hourly wage jobs like these that pay good wages with decent benefits are vital to keeping our economy afloat and families out of poverty.

At a time when the unemployment rate hovers around 9 percent, our economy requires bold action from our government to create good family-sustaining jobs. The steps taken by the four California U.S. attorneys to send letters Wednesday and Thursday notifying at least 16 medical dispensaries and their landlords that they are violating federal drug laws would do just the opposite.

“I have a good middle class American Job with good health benefits and a pension that I can look forward to,” said Larry Richards, a UFCW Local 5 member and a manager at the Blue Sky Dispensary in Oakland, California. “Because of our industry and our union I am able to be a productive breadwinner and, as a person living with HIV since 1983, I have fought and struggled not to be a drain on society. I want to work, I want to be productive but now, they want to take my job and put me back on the rolls of Social Security.”

UFCW proudly stands with our members in the Humboldt Growers Association, the Citizens for Safer Neighborhoods Committee of Colorado, the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association, and our coalition partners in MendoGrown, the Patients Care Alliance, the National Cannabis Industry Association, and the Citizens Coalition for Patient Care.

Medical cannabis is a safe and effective treatment option for many serious medical conditions including cancer, and patients should not be forced to purchase their medicine from criminals, drug dealers, and thugs. If the federal government closes commercial dispensaries and collectives in California, patients will have no safe access to their medication. In addition, thousands of workers will be forced from their jobs in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

UFCW and our members are dedicated to a dignified, controlled, taxed, regulated, compliant, unionized medical cannabis industry. We stand in solidarity with the workers and patients of the unionized medical cannabis industry.

###


United Food and Commercial Workers Union represents over 1.3 million workers in the United States and Canada, and is one of the largest private sector unions in North America. UFCW members work in a wide range of industries, including retail food, food processing, agriculture, retail sales, health care, manufacturing, and medical cannabis.

Union Members Occupy Wall Street for Good Jobs

Yesterday, union members joined the ranks of those Occupying Wall Street in a stand against the insidious corporate greed that has infiltrated our democracy and eroded our jobs, our health care, our economy, and our way of life. 

Protesters gathered in Zuccotti Square and marched approximately one mile north to Foley Square where they joined with members from the RWDSU/UFCW and other labor unions. From Foley Square, the crowd marched side by side descending on Wall Street shouting “We are the 99%.”

Worker productivity has been rising over the past decade, but wages have remained stagnant while the cost of health care has sky-rocketed, leaving the average American struggling to make ends meet. Meanwhile, the gap between the richest 1% and the rest of us has gotten even wider as corporate fat cats pocket the profits that should be going to build good jobs. 

We’ve heard from the Occupy Wall Street folks that they are currently low on food. You can help out by ordering from local businesses or sending care packages. Please try to focus on vegan and vegetarian options with some meat options since we don’t want our vegetarian brothers and sisters to go hungry.

Send care packages and other supplies to this address:

118A Fulton st #205
New York, NY, 10038
Non perishable, no checks (money orders okay), any size package okay

Official Occupy Wall Street page: http://occupywallst.org/

Looking for events in your city? Check out MeetUp.com or find events on Facebook.

Live streaming of Occupy Wall Street: http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

Starting this Labor Day, Let's Make Job Creation a Priority

This Labor Day, as the national unemployment rate hovers around 9 percent and the gap between the rich and poor continues to grow, it is clear that we need to think big and create a bold jobs plan that will lift Americans out of poverty and rebuild the middle class.

But as the country waits for President Obama’s jobs speech next week, the national conversation is still focused on cutting the deficit at the expense of our most vulnerable citizens—a tactic that will do nothing to create new jobs.

It is time to make job creation—good jobs with benefits that can support a family—a priority over a politically manufactured debt crisis. It is time to announce a bold infrastructure investment plan to fix our roads, bridges, schools, airports, railways and seaports, and invest in a WPA-type jobs program to clean up abandoned and vacant properties to alleviate blight in distressed and foreclosure-affected neighborhoods; staff emergency food programs to reduce hunger and promote family stability; work in Head Start, child care, and other early childhood education programs to promote school readiness and early literacy; and renovate and maintain parks, playgrounds, and other public spaces.

If the national conversation continues to be manipulated by those who put their own interests ahead of the poor and middle class, our country will never fully recover from this downward economic spiral. It is time to think big.

UFCW Members Join Verizon Workers in Fight for Middle Class Jobs

Photo courtesy CWA New Jersey's site.

Despite making almost 20 billion in profits and paying out hundreds of millions to its top executives in the last four years, Verizon refuses to share that success with its workers and seems intent on destroying good middle class jobs. To stand up for their families and the future of the American middle class, more than 45,000 members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) have been forced into the streets on strike by their company's greed.

Verizon is refusing to move from a long list of demands, and so CWA and IBEW members are standing up for good jobs. And UFCW members are standing up with them, all across the country, as locals join with their brothers and sisters on picket lines and in their neighborhoods. UFCW locals are adopting Verizon stores to picket in their area to let customers know about the strike and Verizon's corporate greed.

You can join in the fight, too! Go here to adopt a store or join in the fight online. Let's stand together for good jobs in America!

Former A&P Workers Like Joyce Need Your Help! Ask Why, Big Y?

The Big Y grocery company bought A&P stores and is reopening them as Big Y stores in Connecticut--but has barely hired back any of the experienced, long-time A&P workers who were already working in those stores. At the same time, Big Y has laid off many of its own workers.

It's terrible any time someone loses a job, but when a company is expanding--what sense does that make? Why get rid of experienced workers from our communities? Workers with longtime careers at these stores, with families to support?

We're forced to ask: Why, Big Y? What kind of a company does Big Y want to be? The kind that creates good middle class jobs in our communities, or the kind that destroys them?

Please help us support workers like Joyce and her family, and fight for good middle class jobs.


With your help, we want to hold Big Y accountable--by asking Why, Big Y? Please join us in asking the tough questions on Big Y's Facebook page and Twitter feed, like:

• Why did Big Y lay off so many of its own workers, and ask others to take voluntary layoffs—when the company is expanding and hiring?

• Why did Big Y refuse to hire back most A&P workers when it re-opened old A&P stores under the Big Y banner?

• Why is Big Y making these tough economic times even tougher for laid-off workers and their families?

You can find Big Y's Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/bigyworldclassmarket

And Big Y's Twitter feed is: @BigYFoods and the hashtag we'd like to use is #whybigy

Thank you so much for all your help on this, and please spread the word--we can't fight for good jobs at Big Y without you!

TAKE ACTION! Grocery Workers Need Your Support Today!

The Big Y grocery company has been buying A&P stores and reopening them as Big Y stores in Connecticut--but has barely hired back any of the experienced, long-time A&P workers who were already working in those stores. At the same time, Big Y has laid off many of its own workers, and has encouraged full-timers to take voluntary layoffs. 

It's terrible any time someone loses a job, but when a company is expanding--what sense does that make? Why get rid of experienced workers from our communities, only to hire new ones to replace them? Full time OR part time, these grocery jobs should be good jobs--jobs that offer good wages and benefits and a path to advancement.

We're forced to ask: Why, Big Y? What kind of a company does Big Y want to be? The kind that rewards loyal, hard-working employees? Or the kind that lets them--and their customers--down? The kind that creates good middle class jobs in our communities, or the kind that destroys them? The kind that offers a real path to advancement for part-timers and full-timers alike? Or the kind that offers only low wage, dead-end jobs? 

Please help us support these laid-off workers and fight for good middle class jobs.

With your help, we want to hold Big Y accountable--by asking Why, Big Y? Please join us in asking the tough questions on Big Y's Facebook page and Twitter feed, like:

• Why did Big Y lay off so many of its own workers, and ask others to take voluntary layoffs—when the company is expanding and hiring?

• Why did Big Y refuse to hire back most A&P workers when it re-opened old A&P stores under the Big Y banner?

• Why won't Big Y listen to loyal A&P shoppers--who’ve asked repeatedly for Big Y to re-hire the A&P workers who customers have come to regard as family?
  
• Why won’t Big Y reward years of hard work and loyalty, so full-timers AND part-timers alike can have the opportunity they deserve?

• Why is Big Y making these tough economic times even tougher for laid-off workers and their families?

Or, just ask them, Why, Big Y? on Facebook or Twitter to show your solidarity with laid-off Big Y workers. 

You can find Big Y's Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/bigyworldclassmarket

And Big Y's Twitter feed is: @BigYFoods and the hashtag we'd like to use is #whybigy

Feel free to use the graphic above as well in any way you would like. 

Thank you so much for all your help on this, and please spread the word--we can't fight for good jobs at Big Y without you!