FACTS ABOUT UFCW 588 AND NORTHERN CALIFORNIA’S CONCESSIONARY FOOD INDUSTRY CONTRACTS – 198

FOOD CONTRACT HISTORY:

Prior to Jack Loveall assuming the presidency of Sacramento Local 588, the Bay Area and Valley Local Unions bargained jointly with the Northern California food employers through the Food Employers Council (FEC) – 1970s- 1980s.

In 1997, Local 588 started negotiating directly with the major supermarket chains without involvement of the other Northern California local unions, setting the contract template for Northern California local unions and all small food employers. The Loveall leadership has undermined the solidarity of the joint bargaining process by breaking from the group and negotiating concessionary agreements that have undermined the wages, health benefits and pension benefits of all Northern California food and drug workers.

There has always been a very close relationship between Safeway and the Loveall leadership, with some observers speculating that there may be some inside dealing and that the Loveall leadership may be getting kickbacks or other illegal benefits from the concessionary deals cut. President Jack Loveall has been referred to by some as Safeway’s White Knight.

History of Concessions:

1986 – Former UFCW International Region 14 Director and International Vice President Jack Loveall represented 588 for the first time as president in these negotiations. Loveall broke from the group in the 11th hour of joint negotiations and accepted a contract for Local 588 UFCW that provided the first bonus-only contract for food workers in Northern California. The Loveall contract was then imposed on the Valley locals and finally the Bay Area local unions accepted the 3-year contract.

1989 – Following the bargaining pattern established in 1986 master food negotiations, Loveall once again cut and ran with a bonus-only contract with a 25-cent hourly wage increase at the end of the 3-year contract. The Bay Area unions continued bargaining but failed to get a strike vote to reject this contract offer and ended up accepting the Loveall contract. Retail food and meat department workers went nearly 6-years without a wage increase under these Loveall contracts!

1992 – Loveall assumed the head of a main bargaining committee of three largest local unions in Northern California (Locals 588, 428 and 101). This contract provided minimum wage improvements and no major benefit setbacks.

1995 – Loveall demanded to be appointed Chief (sole) Negotiator for Northern California union locals. Based on the limited success of the 1992 contract, all locals went a long with this arrangement. Unilaterally, with no authorization or approval of the other Northern California unions bargaining together, Loveall offered the employers a roll-over contract and ended a very successful 9-day strike against Safeway with a controversial give-away deal to Safeway, and two other major market chains either involved in the strike or lock out.

The new 3-year contract provided for a 3-year wage freeze that turned success on the street into failure at the bargaining table. Most workers who voted on this contract were not informed or did not understand that the settlement reached included a wage freeze, since the previous agreement provided modest wage increases to all workers. This contract was responsible for nearly half the seated presidents being voted out of office by 1997.

1997 – In an union election year move, Loveall opened the food contract 7 months early and negotiated a contract with Safeway and Lucky that provided for the largest give away of health and pension trust fund monies in the history of Northern California grocery contract bargaining with over $700 million in suspended employer payments to the health and pension funds. This give-away was not widely known by the workers who voted to accept the deal that ended the wage freeze.

The wage increases ranged from $1.75 per hour for Journeymen food and meat workers over the 4-year deal to 75-cents for the lowest classification of workers. One Trust Fund actuary reported in 2001 that the suspension of hourly benefit payments to the Trust Funds, generated $350 million in cost savings to employers over and beyond the actual cost of the 1997 contract – a fact never known about the Loveall deal when the other local unions accepted the early contract.

Loveall’s early contract sealed his re-election to office. Even though several Northern California local unions openly opposed this contract because of long-term benefit payment suspensions, all local unions were pressured to sign on and ended up ratifying this first-ever 4-year agreement.

2001 – Once again, Local 588 and the Loveall leadership opened contract talks early without the participation of the other 9 UFCW Northern California local unions. The cornerstone of the new contract was the continued suspension of employer contributions to the Pension Trust Fund for the 3-year term of the agreement (a savings of $1.17 per hour per employee).

President Jack Loveall boasted that his son, Jacques and his legal counsel Steve Stemmerman, negotiated the deal in just 3-days. The other Northern California local unions rejected accepting the contract and continued bargaining. After receiving a final offer, that included a $1.25 per hour wage increase for journey food workers, these local unions recommended against this contract that seriously undermined pension reserves; however, they failed to get the required 66 2/3 percent strike vote and end up accepting the same contract.

The strike authorization vote was very close but with the destruction of the World Trade Center Towers figuring greatly in many members’ minds, some decided that it was a bad time to strike

2004 – Bay Area local unions formed a coalition of 8 local unions, known as the Bay Area Coalition (BAC). These local unions mobilized members during the 4-½ -month Southern California supermarket strike and prepared for a similar labor dispute in Northern California when their contract expired in September. Local 588 did not join or participate in the BAC.

When it appeared that the Bay Area was heading toward a strike in January 2005, President Jacques Loveall (appointed president to succeed his father less than a month before the 588 contract settlement was announced) cut a deal with Raley’s and Safeway that had the most far reaching cuts in employer costs ever negotiated.

A new tier (sub-class) was created for new hires (workers hired after the contract ratification) that reduced wages by nearly $2.00 per hour in top classifications, extended the standing 2080-hour progression steps for new hires to 7800 hours (hours required to get to top pay rates in classifications), deep cuts in pensions, deep cuts in health care benefits including extending from 2 months to 7 months the time required for new workers to receive reduced health plan benefits with family (dependent) coverage not available until after 36 months of employment, doubled co-payments for doctor’s visits and prescription drugs, first-ever annual deductibles for all health plans (A,B and C).

Retirees were hit with a $70 per month first-ever premium cost and were dropped from Plan A to B that requires double the co-payments for doctor’s visits and prescription drugs. The employer’s health care contributions were capped for the first time ever, placing the burden on the union and plan participants to pick up any addition health care costs over the term of the agreement.

After much debate and pressure by the International Union, the Loveall agreement was accepted by the BAC and extended to all of Northern California. Once again the leverage needed to avoid important concessions in major grocery industry negotiations was absent due to Local 588 going it alone with the major Northern California supermarket chains.

All this leads many of us to conclude that Jack Loveall, Senior UFCW International Vice President, was the agent of disunity in Northern California that lead to the worst contracts in our history