Doing More in 2024

By DAVID A. COOK
President

By the time you read this, we will be well into 2024 and maybe a few of us will have already given up on our New Year’s Resolutions. If you haven’t, stick to it! That gym routine won’t feel like a chore forever.

Shortly before the new year, I recorded a video for our Facebook page where I discussed opportunities available for our partners right here at UFCW Local 655. Some of you reading this have probably already heard about this from your union rep. Between the election year and our reinvigorated organizing efforts, Local 655 is looking for all hands on deck.

LEAVE OF ABSENCE PROGRAM
Our union leave of absence program is laid out in most of our major contracts. It allows a partner to come out of their workplace, without losing your pay, benefits, or seniority rights. You’ll continue to be paid your wage rate and your pension and health insurance continue. Your job is waiting for you when you choose to return to work with no loss in seniority. Essentially, it’s a chance to join Local 655 for a special project, but with the safety net of your old job waiting for you whenever you want.

So, if you come out of your workplace and join us for, as an example, an organizing campaign, perhaps you’ll be with us for a few months as we try to grow our union family and welcome more hard-working people into the Labor Movement. Or perhaps after a week or two, you’ll decide that this isn’t exactly what you had in mind. That’s ok! You can step away with no hard feelings and head back to work. It’s not every day you are given a chance to try something totally new with a guarantee like that.

POLITICS
Maybe you’re interested in politics. Well, great. We have something for those folks as well. As we get closer to our primary and general election dates, Local 655 will become increasingly involved in elections. As most of you know, we only get involved on issues related to workers. This means we will be supporting candidates of both parties and campaigning in all kinds of places around the state.

We’ll also be supporting some petition-gathering efforts as well, looking to put issues on the ballot that matter to Missouri workers. My personal favorite is the statewide effort to ensure that all workers, union or not, have a minimum number of guaranteed paid days off every year. It’s sad that this is something we are still fighting for here when so many other countries saw the importance of this kind of policy decades ago. Letting workers have time with their loved ones is critical to a happy workplace and to a better life. After all, most of us aren’t just working for ourselves, we’re working to care for the ones we love.

So, as we head into the campaign season, we’ll dispatch folks to gather signatures for important causes, knock on doors, phone bank and more. If that sounds like something you’d like to try, then pick up the phone and call your union rep, or your Local 655 union hall at 636-394-6500 or 800-882-6560.

DEFEAT OF SO-CALLED “RIGHT-TO-WORK”
In 2018, we brought dozens of partners out of their workplaces for weeks and even months to fight so-called phony “right-to-work. Make no mistake: our efforts on that campaign are what defeated Prop A! Without Local 655 and our signature-gathering efforts, we would not have been successful in putting that issue before the voters. It was the staff and, importantly you, our partners of Local 655, that went to every corner of this state to fight for themselves and for all workers.

I can’t possibly express the feeling we had that night in August when our Local 655 staff and our hard-working partners stood shoulder-to-shoulder and watched as Prop A was crushed in real time. The joy we shared bonded us all in a special way. It was a remarkable moment to be part of.

So ask yourself, do you want to try something different? Are you looking for something new? Would you enjoy fighting for workers by helping the effort to expand paid days off, or electing candidates that will stand up for Missourians instead of corporations?

Do you see organizing as a possibility? Do you want to talk to workers about the benefits of a union contract and help them fight for the right to have their own?

Maybe you’re reading this and you’re just not sure. Maybe you need a little more information, a little more context, a little more guidance. If you’re just curious that’s fine too. Call your union rep, or call this union hall. We’d love to talk to you more to see if you’re interested.

A NEW PATH?
Ask yourself, what do you have to lose? Then, ask yourself, what could you possibly gain? A great experience you can remember for a lifetime? Maybe a new pathway in life at a different career? Maybe just a change of pace, a fresh start, and something different.

It’s 2024, and it’s time to do more.