Presidents Message

I have been an active Local 38 member for 36 years. While working at the Chef plant, I served the membership as Department Steward, Chief Steward and Vice President of the local union. I also worked on organizing programs with the UFCW International Union as a Special Project Union Representative. I am proud of the work we have done to keep Local 38 thriving as an independent local union. But nothing is more important than the work at bargaining table and that’s where we have been able to secure industry-leading contracts for our facilities. I believe in this union, because I believe that every worker has the right to a decent living, quality affordable health care, and respect on the job. These principles have always guided me and will serve as the foundation of our union’s work going forward. As honored and humbled as I am to serve as president of Local 38, it’s not about me—It’s about you!

In my 36 years as a UFCW member and activist, I’ve learned one truth above all others: The success of any union depends on its members. Not its leaders. Local 38’s greatest strength lies in our members, hard-working men and women who are the most productive workers in their professions. Unions are about members joining together to bargain collectively with employers, to gain a strong voice in the workplace, and to empower themselves to improve their lives. At this divisive and difficult time for our union we all need to work together and be able to concentrate on the important work of protecting and improving the wages and benefits of our members and building the labor movement.

The ideas and principles to build a stronger union do not lie within any one individual. They lie within all of us. They lie in the collective wisdom and strength of all UFCW members, like you, who work hard every day to support their families. The more members who get involved, the better contracts you get. The more members who help organize, the larger and more powerful the union grows. The more members who take an active role in the day-to-day aspects of contract enforcement, the more respect you receive in the workplace. And the more members who volunteer to help elect pro-worker candidates, the more likely it is we’ll have elected officials on our side.

History shows that the more unionized workers there are, and the more we stick together in solidarity—the more likely it is we can raise wages and conditions for ourselves—and others. For those of us who work in a union shop, our power at the bargaining table is determined by how many facilities in our area is union vs. non-union. Each time we go to negotiate our contract, our company points to the non-union facility down the road—or across the state line—as competition. If those facilities were union, it would be a completely different story. For example, Workers in non-union facilities don’t want to make less money, earn fewer benefits, or work in unsafe working conditions. They do, because they don’t have a union. Sometimes, workers don’t have a union because their employer actively tries to keep the union out. Other workers haven’t tried to organize their facility because they simply don’t know the benefits.

If unionized workers came together to organize, we could really build power at the bargaining table. We could raise wages and working conditions for workers across the whole area. Working together, we will grow our union, we will bargain the best contracts possible, we will organize smarter, and we will hold irresponsible corporations accountable.

In solidarity,

Russ Baker, President