Category: Labor

San Diego labor is divided over which proposed redevelopment for the Sports Arena – Midway area is best. Five developer teams have stepped forward and as we enter the elimination phase, endorsements from groups like unions and labor councils are extremely important.

Yet, only two teams have received laudatory praises from San Diego labor.

Thousands of union grocery workers at Ralphs, Albertsons, and Vons, from Central California to San Diego, will be voting the week of March 21 on whether to authorize an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike against their employers.

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 135, along with sibling UFCW Locals in the bargaining unit, have filed multiple ULP charges with the National Labor Relations Board against these companies for violating the rights of members. These unfair labor practice charges range from trying to influence members by providing gifts and bonuses while negotiations are ongoing

Union grocery workers are rallying today for a new contract at Ralphs on Sports Arena Boulevard today, Feb. 28 at noon. The union contract for almost 9,000 San Diego workers expires on March 6 and the rally is to show the companies and public at large that these workers continue to be essential and that they deserve a new union contract that reflects the service and sacrifices that they have made.

The union that represents the workers is United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 135, and the contract that expires covered workers at Albertsons, Gelson’s, Ralphs, Stater Bros, and Vons in San Diego County. The union contracts covered approximately 60,000 workers in Southern California.

By Todd Walters and Grant Tom / Times of San Diego

The essential frontline healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente deserve more from their company. These unionized workers have given their all during the pandemic to provide the best care possible to their patients. Yet Kaiser Permanente has taken an inflexible and shameful position towards their employees.

Over the last few months, labor organizations that are part of the Alliance of Health Care Unions have been negotiating new national and local agreements with Kaiser to no avail. UFCW Local 135 is part of the alliance, as well as United Nurses Association of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, United Steelworkers, and others.

Enough workers at the flagship Mission Valley location of cannabis retailer March and Ash signed authorization cards that now they are all part of a union. They joined the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 135 which has been organizing cannabis workers all over Southern California lately.

Brent E. Beltrán, Communications Director for Local 135, sent out the following statement:

SAN DIEGO – On the heels of last month’s announcement that employees at cannabis retailer March and Ash in Vista, City Heights, and Imperial chose to join United Food and Commercial Workers Local 135 and voted on their first ever union contract, enough workers at the flagship Mission Valley location signed authorization cards to bring themselves into the bargaining unit.

United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 135 just announced that they have successfully completed union bargaining agreements for workers at cannabis retail outlets owned by March and Ash.

Cannabis workers at March and Ash locations in San Diego and Imperial Counties voted on May 12, 2021 to ratify their first ever union contract. It’s also the very first cannabis industry union contract originating in San Diego and Imperial Counties.

The outlets are in the City Heights community of San Diego, the City of Vista, and the City of Imperial. The City Heights and City of Imperial locations offer recreational cannabis products, while the Vista location is medicinal only.

Union officials believe this contract will set “the gold standard in the unionized cannabis industry,”
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By Colleen O’Connor

Sometimes, I am happy to be wrong. And this is one of those times.

In my article, “Save the Libraries: Throw Books at the Mayor: Part II,” I implied that the Municipal Employees Association supported the Mayor’s cuts to the libraries.

Specifically, I asked:

“Is it the Municipal Employees Union that is blocking the Library funding? Surely, their membership includes families and friends who use the libraries. Or people who want jobs. Or just rational individuals who understand that depriving library users in every neighborhood free access to knowledge is just plain stupid.”

The MEA’s, General Manager, Mike Zucchet, was kind enough to respond and correct that impression.

It’s really no surprise that a study recently released by a business institute at Point Loma Nazarene has come out strongly opposed to the City of San Diego creating its own utility company, which would be then publicly-owned.

The study by Nazarene’s Fermanian Business & Economic Institute claims it would cost the city nearly $9 billion in taking over SDG&E’s assets – way too costly – and there would be no benefits to the process called “municipalization.” At a recent press conference, Nazarene chief economist Lynn Reaser and primary author of the study, stood outside a SDG&E substation. Reaser was joined by all the usual suspects:

By Colleen E. Putzel / Times of San Diego / Feb. 16, 2021

Like most tragedies, the onset of the pandemic produced a call for unity with sentiments ensuring “we’re all in this together.”

Every outlet, from the daily news to hand-made window signs, offered appreciation for those on the front line: health care workers, grocery store clerks, public transportation workers, and truck drivers. My father, a truck driver, and my mother, a seamstress, suddenly became heroes.

My father goes to work every day delivering construction materials and my mother paused her Etsy sales to make masks for her local hospital. I feared, especially early on, that my father’s company would begin laying off workers. As that threat seemed less imminent, it was replaced by the fear that he would be exposed to the virus.

By Jim Miller

This weekend we celebrate Labor Day, but how many of us have any idea where the holiday came from or what it celebrates?

The first Labor Day was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5th, 1882 in New York City and was proposed by the Central Labor Union (CLU) at a time when American workers were struggling for basic rights such as the eight-hour day. The CLU moved the “workingman’s holiday” to the first Monday in September in 1883 and urged other unions to celebrate the date as well. The movement grew throughout the 1880s, along with the American labor movement itself with 23 states passing legislation recognizing Labor Day as a holiday. By 1894 Congress followed suit and Labor Day became a national holiday.

Editordude: Michael Zucchet – a resident of Point Loma – who used to represent Ocean Beach and most of Point Loma in District 2 on the San Diego City Council, and who now is the general manager of the San Diego Municipal Employees Association, has stepped into the debate about the troubled City-owned building at 101 Ash Street, and has made a startling claim. He says compared to the work offices and buildings his union members work in, 101 Ash Street is the “Taj Mahal” of the city’s buildings. Here is his Op-Ed piece from today’s U-T.

By Michael Zucchet / San Diego Union-Tribune / Aug. 17, 2020

These days the most famous address of a city building is 101 Ash Street. Based on all the publicity, you might think it is the crummiest building the city owns or leases — riddled with asbestos and saddled with plumbing, electrical and air systems that are past their useful life. In fact, 101 Ash is the nicest, most modern, functional office space the city controls.

That’s right. Warts and all, 101 Ash is the Taj Mahal compared with the current work environs of city workers.

The American Federation of Teachers Lays Out a Bold Vision of a Just Recovery as San Diego Green New Deal Alliance Launches

By Jim Miller

This summer I was proud to see that my national union, the American Federation of Teachers, was thinking big at its biennial convention in late July. Clearly, the activist spirit sweeping the country was in the (virtual) air.

Building on some of the work my brothers and sisters and I did here in San Diego along with others in our statewide union, the national AFT followed the lead of California and passed both a resolution endorsing the Green New Deal and a wide ranging call to move beyond the necessary but narrow bread and butter response we have seen from the national and local AFL-CIO to thinking comprehensively about how we should pivot and seize the opportunity that this crisis presents to build a better future.

The resolution in support of a Green New Deal calls on the 1.7 million members of the AFT