Union Profile

Striking Out For Its Members

In 2004, UFCW leaders led 60,000 members in a disastrous strike against southern California grocery chains. UFCW members collectively lost 4.58 million days of work, with terrible consequences for workers. The environmental publication High Country News described it as "a brutal strike that cost millions in lost wages, and resulted in broken marriages, lost homes and cars, and even suicides." Even then, the publication noted, when the strike was settled, "some workers have had their wages and benefits slashed."

Pro-Member Or Just Anti-Business?

"If we can't organize [nonunion supermarkets]," says Tom McNutt, president of Local 400 of the UFCW, "the best thing to do is to erode their business as much as possible." This is the slash-and-burn theory driving UFCW's political-style PR offensive against Wal-Mart. Because the union has failed to organize workers at the chain, its leaders want to harm the company's bottom line and its employees.

"Organizing is war," according to longtime UFCW leader Joe Crump, and that means harassing nonunion employers and "costing them enough time and energy and money to either eliminate them or get them to surrender to the union." He added that employers must be made to "pay for operating nonunion." In an article titled "The Pressure is On: Organizing Without the NLRB," Crump wrote:

After a three-year struggle, the battle with Family Foods is over. Do we represent the employees? No. The company went out of business ... Perhaps even more important is the message that had been sent to nonunion competitors: There is no "free lunch" in our jurisdiction.

Speaking about the same campaign, former UFCW president Doug Dority argued that his union "must either reduce these chains' market share ... or we must put them out of business. There is no other option."

UFCW's Well-Funded Officers

In 2004, a longtime leader of UFCW Local 1776 said, "I think salaries are a problem. They're too low for too many people, but too high for a few." That same year:

• The International union headquarters paid former president Doug Dority more than $700,000 in salary and benefits.
  
  
• The International paid $309,000 to retired executive vice president Sarah Amos and another $256,000 to retired International executive vice president Michael Leonard -- again, as salary.
  
  
• 262 UFCW officials across the country made more than $100,000 in salary.

Historical Low Points

UFCW leaders have faced allegations of extorting businesses and misusing their members' dues for lavish lifestyles:

• In late 2005, the former assistant to the president of UFCW International, Joseph DiFlumera, was sentenced for mail fraud, racketeering, and extorting more than $1.5 million from a grocery chain. DiFlumera told prosecutors that he would offer an "insurance policy" that allowed a company to "come under the umbrella" of protection from union organizing. DiFlumera "repeatedly advised these individuals that the monies paid to him were handed over to the president of Local 1445 and the UFCW. The defendant insisted that if these monies were not paid by the company the company would suffer extreme economic harm."
  
  
• Former UFCW International secretary-treasurer Joseph Talarico pled guilty to his role in embezzling $2 million from Local 1. He was ordered to pay $1.1 million in restitution. In related indictments for defrauding UFCW, his son was sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to repay $81,000 in embezzled funds; his daughter was sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to repay $26,000; and his brother pled guilty to embezzling $650,000 from the union. Together, the four family members made more than $1 million in salaries from the local in 1996.
  
  
• In 1993, Newsday reported that UFCW founder William Wynn traveled in a $5 million union-owned jet plane and sold his house to the union for $620,000 (nearly twice the appraised price) -- and continued to live there for at least three years. The paper reported that in addition to Wynn's salary of $263,000 ($346,000 adjusted for inflation), he was reimbursed for $80,000 in expenses the previous year. It further noted that a reformer seeking to unseat Wynn "said that Wynn's salary and perks are a disgrace when put in the context of the incomes of the workers he represents" and had research that showed "Wynn's salary rose 122 percent from 1980 to 1992, while the average meat packing worker's wages went up 3 percent over that period."

Membership Total Membership:   1,304,061		Financial Information Total Assets:   $ 149,534,747 Total Receipts:   $ 215,614,352
Source: Department of Labor, Office of Labor Management Standards LM filings

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Representational Activities ( 26.9%)	$ 47,869,112
Political Activities & Lobbying ( 2.6%)	$ 4,677,649
Contributions, Gifts & Grants ( 1.6%)	$ 2,835,741
General Overhead ( 11.5%)	$ 20,450,824
Union Administration ( 4.3%)	$ 7,659,410
Strike Benefits ( 0.8%)	$ 1,444,642
Total Compensation ( 15.1%)	$ 26,968,627
Per Capita Tax ( 5.7%)	$ 10,080,400

Local	Members
UFCW Regional Council 8 (Buena Park, CA)	190,908
UFCW District Council (Little Falls, NJ)	115,407
UFCW Council (Grapevine, TX)	84,743
UFCW Regional Council 6 (Itasca, IL)	58,657
UFCW Local 881 (Rosemont, IL)	32,258
UFCW Local 1262 (Clifton, NJ)	31,800
UFCW Local 400 (Landover, MD)	28,966
UFCW Council (Indianapolis, IN)	28,494
UFCW Local 1546 (Chicago, IL)	26,763
UFCW Local 770 (Los Angeles, CA)	24,535
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