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As someone who has worked for both UPS’s Teamsters union and one of Kroger’s unions, I gotta say, unions suck. Just yesterday, I was told that corporate was closing my grievance and doing nothing about it by the Kroger union rep who filed a grievance for me cause we’re being forced to waste an average hour of the start of every shift breaking down and sorting by aisle pallets that should already be coming sorted by aisle. Instead of doing anything about it or getting us a raise to compensate for the extra work being expected of us, I was told that because of the contract, we can’t get a raise for that extra work, corporate is closing out the grievance, and at best will talk to the warehouses to try and get us the aisle friendly pallets our training says we’re getting. In other words, nothing will change. That’s a real time example of a union preventing you from negotiating better pay and/or working conditions. Instead, we’re just supposed to deal with it and hope the next contract is better.
This contract that was negotiated in October 2022 while Kroger was spending $22.7 billion to merge with Albertson’s (it’s biggest competitor) and getting the union to sell the workers on there being no money for raises in 2023. Nobody in Kroger’s union got raises in 2023-and the first raise for this current contract doesn’t come until March of this year and it’s a whopping $.30 for part time employees under an average 30hrs a week. Actually, some of the produce workers for a different Local union was willing and able to fight for it’s produce workers to get a $.50 raise to cut fruit in store. It’s where I got the idea to ask for a raise for the pallets we were forced to break down each night to start our actual jobs. Instead, I was told that’s actually a different union at Kroger and they’re under a different contract. In other words, my union sucks and will not fight to renegotiate the contract for better wages or working conditions like a different union also at Kroger did.
When I worked at UPS, I had Teamsters reps tell me I got paid good money to put up with nonsense like abuse and contract violations from my supervisors or clearly unsafe working conditions I had complained about before getting hurt by. I don’t like or trust unions cause I’ve had firsthand experience with more than one screwing over the workers whose labor pays for their very existence. Do you know what it’s like being in a room with people who get paid off your labor as they tell you right off the bat they’re not even going to try and get you more money to deal with the extra work you’re being forced to do? Just shut that down from the start and only wanted to focus on how they were going to get us aisle friendly pallets like we’re supposed to be getting-something that is not going to happen in the end anyway. How did the union help us workers there?