Executive Vice President's Report
Fred Walter
Fred Walter has been a part of the UFCW Local 1500 staff for nearly 20 years. Currently, as Field Director, he serves on the Local 1500 Executive Board and is also a Trustee of the Pension & Welfare Funds. In the past, Mr. Walter has been an integral asset during contract negotiations, bargaining and advancing the membership of Local 1500. In November of 2009 the UFCW Local 1500 Executive Board unanimously voted to promote Mr. Walter to Executive Vice President/Field Director.
December 2011
By: Fred Walter, Executive Vice President/Field Director
Bailing Out America on Our Backs...Once Again
When our economy crashed in 2008, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, better known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), authorized the use of $700 billion to stabilize the nation's failing financial systems and restore the flow of credit in the economy. A $700 billion dollar bailout, using taxpayer dollars to rebound banks, corporations and insurers. The guidelines for the bailout were clear: the TARP should protect home values and consumer savings, help citizens keep their homes, and create jobs. This didn't happen. The bailout continued to grow, eventually "investing" $1.1 trillion of taxpayer money into more companies, quoted as "too big to fail". The government had no real oversight over bailout funds; we taxpayers remained in the dark about how money has been used and if it has made any difference.
Too big to fail led to "Too Big to Sue". This year in June, the United States Supreme Court told over 1.5 million women, both former and current Wal-Mart employees victims of sexual discrimination, Wal-Mart is too large and spread out across the globe to sue in a class-action lawsuit. The court said, the banks we have were too big to fail, and with Wal-Mart we now have too big to sue. Of course, Wal-Mart denied any wrongdoing and stated their corporate policy forbids discrimination, encourages diversity and ensures fair treatment, though there are over 1.5 million women in this country who will tell you differently. But if our Supreme Court tells banks and corporations they're too big to fail, and a retailer they're too big to sue, then who are they protecting and what side are they on? If the court won't act and defend our rights as retail workers, who will?
The court essentially told Wal-Mart's corporate headquarters they're off the hook for what local managers do, removing any incentive from corporate offices to insure their stores follow the law. Once again leaving non-unionized retail workers without a voice and putting corporations at a higher esthetic value than working people and their basic rights. If the court tells workers they can't band together to stand up for their basic rights and sue the world's largest retailer for discrimination, how can workers' basic rights be defended? Who will stand up for workers? Unions have and always will.
We and 12 other UFCW/RWDSU Locals have been re-negotiating our contracts with the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P) in order for the stores to remain open and profitable. A&P filed for bankruptcy in December of 2010, mainly due to their mismanagement of stores, properties and finances. A&P's mismanagement, not the workers who pour their hearts out and take pride in running the stores, put the company into bankruptcy. It begs the question that we all asked in 2008 when banks and corporations received our bailout money: If we did nothing wrong, then why are we being penalized? Too big to fail was the answer the federal government gave us taxpayers. Over 160,000 businesses filed for bankruptcy since 2008, unfortunately most of them shutting doors for good and laying off hundreds of thousands of working men and women who have done nothing wrong. What can workers do to protect themselves from being laid off in these extreme economic times? There is not much to do, but having a union contract and the support of a union of the 1.3 million UFCW members across the nation helps greatly. We cannot stop companies from closing their shops and laying off employees, we're not business operators. What we can protect and will always protect is jobs. That's what we've protected during the A&P re-negotiations the last few months.
The UFCW stood together to protect jobs. It was extremely disheartening to see A&P executives exhibit such corporate greed during negotiations. In April, it flat out disgusted all of us to see top executives demand millions of dollars in bonuses while they closed stores and asked UFCW members to continue to shoulder real sacrifices. We filed objections and complaints with the bankruptcy court against the bonuses, all falling on deaf ears. At the end the bankruptcy court, as they usually do, sided with the company. A&P has worn their greed on their sleeves like many corporations have in these economic times, asking the middle class to burden the blows of a tough economy & bankruptcy. This has unfortunately become common practice in our country, corporate greed.
In August a study uncovered twenty-five of the 100 highest paid U.S. CEOs who earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax. This November another study announced 30 American businesses that paid less than $0 in income tax over the last three years, the list included, Wells Fargo, Boeing, Verizon, Con-Ed, General Electric, Exxon. How or why is this going on while our country faces national debt, and maintains an unacceptably high unemployment rate? Outlandish CEO compensation, which helped led to our economic crisis, continues to grow. Why are corporate profits & CEO salaries growing while the middle class and worker pay stays the same? Corporate greed. America is job starved. Corporations have the power to create a powerful middle class if they abandon their corporate greed. The gap between the top 1% continues to grow wider on our bailouts while we try to stay afloat.
We are fighting back. In Wisconsin, hundreds of thousands of workers and outraged community members stormed the capitol in Madison after anti-worker politicians rammed through legislation attacking the rights of workers. In Ohio, over a million signatures were gathered to repeal Ohio's SB 5, a collective bargaining law that bars public sector strikes, curtails bargaining rights for 360,000 public employees and scraps binding arbitration of management-labor disputes. Corporate America has launched an unprecedented attack on our jobs and our rights.
Retail jobs are the jobs of the future. In fact, retail is one of the only sectors of our economy that's growing. Many of those jobs will be part-time. Much like manufacturing once did, retail jobs will define how it is to live and work in America in the 21st Century. It's critically important that retail employers compensate their workers with pay and benefits that allow them to live in the middle class.
Companies are asking more and more from retail workers, treating them like second-class citizens. At Target, Best Buy & Wal-Mart, they're forcing workers to work holidays like Thanksgiving in order to be open extra early on Black Friday, more like Black Thanksgiving. Some of our stores are asking to remain open on Christmas in order to make more profits. Retail workers deserve respect; we deserve the respect and opportunities to spend time with our families on holidays. Local 1500 members work hard all year long to make special occasions and holidays great for all their customers; they deserve the opportunity to spend their special days with their families also.
All of us together with one voice can help bring change to our workplaces and country. We can stop corporate greed and put people ahead of profits. We're fighting for: good jobs, fairness, and an end to corporate greed and attacks on workers. At a time where all the laws and guidelines seem to favor corporations and big businesses, unions are still here for the working people, and when we stand together as one no one can stop us.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your continued support. It has been my upmost pleasure to serve each and every Local 1500 member. As always my door or phone line is always open for any Member with any suggestions or questions they may have. I wish you all a happy, healthy holiday season and a great 2012!
Thoughts on the article? Fred wants to hear what you think! Email him at info@ufcw1500.org
