Nearly 100 Union Workers at 9 Trade Fair Supermarkets in Queens Leaflet Public, Collect Signatur

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - March 12, 2013 - PRLog -- Queens, New York- Nearly 100 United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 342 meat department members who work at 9 Trade Fair Supermarket locations throughout Queens, New York, have been out on the streets during their off time over the last several weeks fighting for a fair contract and protesting Unfair Labor Practices (ULPs) allegedly committed by the company’s owner.  UFCW Local 342, a labor organization that represents nearly 10,000 members working in supermarkets, as well as a variety of other food industries in the area, has been helping members distribute leaflets and collect hundreds of signatures from a supportive community ever since bargaining sessions with the company have gone progressively downhill.      

On Tuesday, NYC (District #25) Council Member Daniel Dromm issued a strong statement to the media and also signed a community petition supporting the workers.  He then visited Local 342 members at the Jackson Heights Trade Fair location, vowing to stick with them and help in any way he can as they battle a bullying owner.  Council Member Dromm, an ardent supporter of labor, as well as the Latino community in his district, chastised Trade Fair for its poor treatment of the workers.  “Our community deserves supermarkets that uphold the law, provide fair living wages and affordable healthcare to their workers, and overall, treat them with dignity and respect,” Dromm said.  He continued, “Trade Fair should not be allowed to punish workers for engaging in union activities, and I support these workers in their fight to achieve fairness.”          

According to Kate Meckler, UFCW Local 342’s Director of Communications, Trade Fair is proposing to cut workers’ hours, gut their healthcare benefits, freeze their wages, and take away their Sunday premium pay in a new contract.  The members’ leafleting in response to the company’s unacceptable proposal is what drove the company to allegedly commit several Unfair Labor Practices.  “Trade Fair management and ownership has purposely reduced workers’ hours, threatened to fire them, and verbally abused, as well as attempted to intimidate them just because they were leafleting customers while ‘off the clock.’  These are all protected union activities, and we have filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board as a result.”

Working conditions in all Trade Fair locations since contract negotiations began have been extremely difficult and uncomfortable.  “The company’s owner and management have created an atmosphere that is driven by intimidation and fear,” Meckler said.  “The workers will not stand for the abuse any longer and will continue to alert the public of the company’s misdeeds until their bad behavior and disrespectful contract offer are punished and taken off the table respectively,” Meckler concluded.  The Union also hinted that they will try to get the support of the public in other ways, up to and including a strike, if it becomes necessary.