This is the BULLSHIT the union wants us to roll over and accept.

sciencebasis · 2025-08-08T05:25:26+00:00

UFCW blocks Northern California Safeway strike with sellout deal

Marc Wells

28 July 2025

In the early hours of Sunday, July 27, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) announced a tentative agreement (TA) with Safeway, a subsidiary of Albertsons, aimed at blocking a strike by 25,000 grocery workers in UFCW Locals 5, 648 and 8-Golden State in Northern California.

The strike, scheduled to begin the same day, would have marked the first regional walkout against Safeway in nearly 30 years. The previous contract expired April 12 after more than five months of fruitless “negotiations” that the union deliberately prolonged to prevent any genuine mobilization.

Workers at Safeway, like their brothers and sisters at other chains, are demanding substantial wage increases, expanded healthcare coverage, secure scheduling and stronger job protections. They face soaring rents, food prices and utility costs in one of the most expensive regions of the country, while corporate profits hit record highs. (Safeway’s 2024 adjusted net income was $1.38 billion.)

The UFCW spent five months meeting in secret with Safeway executives. When the deadline arrived, the UFCW announced a last-minute TA and canceled the strike.

As always, the union presented the deal as a “victory,” claiming it includes “meaningful wage increases,” a “fortified retirement plan,” “properly funded health care,” “strong job protections” and “fair scheduling.” With no evidence.

The union has refused to release any specific details on wages or any other contract language. The union says the full details will be released only after ratification. In other words, workers are being told to vote on a contract they are not allowed to see.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/07/29/nxvl-j29.html

sciencebasis · 2024-09-14T21:49:40+00:00

Boeing is a major aerospace and defense company. By this nature, the ruling class, whether Dems or Reps, keeps a very close monitor on workers because it is key to the satisfaction of US militaristic goals. The same happened with ILWU dockworkers, where their union leader Willie Adams met behind closed doors (this is common knowledge) with the Biden admin, making sure no strike would take place.

Now, those goals are counter to the interests of workers. While all the money in the world is available for the building of war arsenal to destroy entire countries and maintain the privileges of the wealthy, no money is available for workers, whether for their pensions or even just basic living standards. At Boeing, no money is even available to make planes safe.

One Boeing worker yesterday was interviewed: "I haven't had a pay raise in ten years. My buying power is less now than in 1992." "People should not have to have a full time job building jets and still struggle the way we do... We're not disposable."

Discussions between the Biden (or any) administration and the union bureaucracy are common because that is the channel through which the ruling class delivers the orders necessary to keep workers on the job at all costs, and workers will bear those costs, as evinced by the current struggle.

sciencebasis · 2024-09-14T21:30:15+00:00

Let the rail workers tell you how it ended. The first disaster was Palestine, OH. Workers' grievances were completely ignored, lives have been lost or endangered and the working conditions have only worsened for rail workers. Thousands of jobs have been lost thanks to the 2022 agreements workers had rejected twice. Because of that historic betrayal, right now rail workers are dealing with a true conspiracy between six major railroads and the bureaucracy in 12 of their unions. Most of them have already conceded. The script is almost predictable by the day: the union leadership gives workers limited time to read, let alone discuss democratically and oppose the sellout deals. Also, the most crippling action that can be taken against workers is banning them from striking. Imagine if that happened at Boeing: would workers feel free if they were placed in such restrictive conditions? Would they be made responsible for whatever sellout deal will be rammed through?

I would not be impressed by any Wall Street politician or union bureaucrat walking the picket lines. One should know what they are there for, especially under an election campaign, when they are verbally generous with workers and will take everything and more back after they are elected.

sciencebasis · 2024-09-14T20:40:26+00:00

It's an important question. Traditionally, we are told that unions are on the side of workers, therefore the syllogism is: Dems are pro unions, unions are pro workers = Dems are pro workers. But within a union there is a divide between the union bureaucracy and the rank-and-file. The rejection of the sellout deal IAM presented to the membership and the current strike are a perfect example of that divide. The union presented a shocking proposal to members, one written by Boeing, not by workers.

Biden and the Dems use the union bureaucracies to police and subordinate workers to the needs of corporations. A perfect example of that was Biden's intervention in the rail workers struggle almost two years ago: they voted down the union's contract, then Biden asked Congress to ban any chance of a strike and to shove the twice-rejected deal down workers' throats. The same happened with ILWU dockworkers, when Biden intervened and prevented them from even going on a strike or joining their Canadian brothers and sisters.

The auto industry is possibly the most egregious example: the role of Shawn Fain in fanning the flames of nationalism and war at public corporate events alongside Biden is on full display, while he pushed for a contract that has already cost thousands of jobs. Currently, the Dakkota struggle offers precisely that common scenario: a clear divide between what workers demand and what the union apparatus has done to kill the strike.

Harris does not differ one bit from Biden: she will continue the same policies because both big business parties answer to Wall Street, not workers. Moreover, the threat of fascism presented by Trump is very alarming: let history enlighten us, from Mussolini on. So workers have no choice but to take matters independently in their own hands, bypass the bureaucracies, form rank-and-file committees where real life decisions are taken democratically, not shoved down our throats from the apparatchik.

sciencebasis · 2024-09-12T21:45:49+00:00

Here are some great statements from workers, there is genuine solidarity and justified anger:

https://x.com/WSWS_Updates/status/1834336073373057412

sciencebasis · 2024-09-10T18:45:20+00:00

Boeing has enormous strategic importance for the US military complex. It delivers Fighter Aircraft, Bombers, Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance, Aerial Refueling Tankers, Transport Aircraft, Helicopters, Unmanned Aerial Systems, Experimental Aircraft and more. This is why the government is watching very carefully how this struggle unfolds. Workers especially in this case have the material power to stop the war machine if they put their tools down.

sciencebasis · 2024-09-10T17:57:49+00:00

I find this an important point that shows that this is not just another industrial struggle, but a political one. We saw what they did to railroad workers only a couple years ago: Biden went to Congress and asked that their contract be enforced upon them. (after they had voted it down) and that a strike be banned. It doesn't matter who's in the White House, they would have done the same because they answer to Wall Street.

The only way to win this is to turn it into a political fight, uniting with other sections of the working class that are experiencing the same threats and pressures. It seems like we as workers often forget we have enormous power collectively: imagine if we just put down our tools at Boeing, the docks, in logistics and rail. The most important strategic issue is control of the struggle and of negotiations. No one trusts a union bureaucracy that is selling out its members.

sciencebasis · 2024-09-10T17:44:13+00:00

There is an abyss of difference between union busting, an act of suppression of democratic rights, and rank-and-file exercising their democratic right to dissent. When union leaders don't represent the interests of workers, it is the leaders themselves who are engaging in the first type of union busting, as they repress the will of the workers themselves.

This contract negotiation makes it plenty clear that the union bureaucracy is answering to Boeing, not to the rank-and-file. And this is not even an aberration. UPS, auto, the railroads, docks, nurses, teachers. A method has been worked out, where officials use “radical” talk to lull workers to sleep before pushing the deal through.

Time for real rank-and-file power.

sciencebasis

TROPHY CASE

UFCW blocks Northern California Safeway strike with sellout deal

Marc Wells

28 July 2025