UFCW 227 President Bob Blair’s Update: Steps We Are Taking To Protect You And Your Family

April 6, 2020

Dear Union Family,

Let me say first – thank you – for all your hard work to get our country through this crisis. You are holding your community together and your communities owe you their gratitude. I want you to know that you are not alone, your union has your back.

Our days continue to be long, challenging and stressful. You are concerned about your health and safety; and that of your loved ones. We are too. And we all worry about how long will this last.

UFCW 227 and our International union continues to fight for you with employers, as well as, elected officials to make sure that your hard work and dedication during this crisis is recognized.

The actions we wanted you to know about include:

Employer DiscussionsWe continue to fight with employers about steps they should be taking to protect your job, pay and benefits. We have demanded emergency pay increases. Some employers are stepping up, but unfortunately some haven’t yet, and others are offering something and it's nowhere near acceptable. We will continue to fight for more for you for as long as this crisis continues. We have demanded specific safety actions, such as providing masks, enforcing social distancing for our members who work closely with the public or each other and staggering shift changes, breaks and lunches to help with social distancing. We will continue to push for more protections for you.

MasksRecently, the CDC updated their guidelines and now recommend wearing cloth face coverings in places like grocery stores and pharmacies. We’ve fought hard over the issue of masks and your companies should finally be starting to provide them to you. We've all heard that masks are in short supply. If you do not have a mask yet, you can visit our website to find simple ways to create your own to keep you safe.

First Responder StatusLast week the Governors of Kentucky and Indiana extended childcare services for first responders to grocery workers: Childcare extended to grocery workers. We have asked both Governors to extend these important benefits to our members producing the food that we all need, and we will continue to fight to make that happen. We are also still working to have both states designate our grocery and food processing members as “first responders.” This designation, we believe, will provide quicker access to testing and additional protections necessary to do your vital jobs.

Member CommunicationsWe are continuing to create and update informational materials to distribute through all of the different communications platforms we have available, such as Facebook or email, to help all of our members be aware of actions they should take to keep themselves safe at home and at work. Such as this new guide on some things you can control to keep you and your family safe.

We want to hear from you about what is happening in your plants and stores. Please continue to use https://www.ufcw227.org/healthandsafetyreportform to let us know your concerns, so that we can address those concerns with your companies.

As Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear says every night “We will get through this. We will get through this together.” I would add, we will get through this because of the incredibly important work you are doing for your communities every single day.

I will continue to update you on our efforts to support and protect you.

In Solidarity,
Bob Blair
President
UFCW 227