City Market Union Campaign Wins Hazard Pay Increase and Health Protections: Interview with Meaghan Diffenderfer

We interviewed Meaghan Diffenderfer, a member of UE Local 203 at City Market. We discussed the role the Union had to play in advocating for safety practices, hazard pay, and the shifting balance of power at work. The UE (United Electrical Workers) is a nationwide union that represents members in a number of workplaces both private and public, service industry and manufacturing alike. 

What are workers able to achieve through collective representation at City Market?

I think one of the most important aspects of being unionized is that, being in an industry where employees are often seen as expendable/ replaceable, there are a lot of protections to be sure employees are not terminated without cause… 

We also have the power to organize ourselves and community members when big issues arise without backlash that is often presented by other employers; we can speak up when there are unsafe conditions, or policies that are harmful to our employees, and often demand change and win, creating a safer workplace for ourselves and help set an industry standard.

Since the onset of the COVID crisis what have been the major concerns of the workers? 

The biggest concern has been for employee safety and protection from exposure. The union leadership has been instrumental in gathering concerns from employees (needing more appropriate PPE, less customers in the store, enforced distancing, more sanitizing) and demanding them from Management.

 What implementations has the union been able to win? 

We've gotten hazard pay, bandannas provided for PPE use, Plexiglas for the cashiers in the front end, increased security, and limited store capacity. At the beginning of the crisis, when demands were made for protocol changes, we were often told that Management was working on it and looking at different options. Now when we demanded change, it happened at a much faster rate. I acknowledge some delay was due to taking time to research what options might be available, but unfortunately the truth of this crisis is that there literally is not time, and a lot of these protections should have been implemented weeks before they were.

You won a $3/hour hazard pay increase. How did that happen? Can you talk about the social media campaign the union launched and what effect that had?

We did win hazard pay, or a “staff appreciation bonus”, which has been substantial in making employees feel better about continuing to put our lives on the line during these unprecedented times. Shortly after Governor Scott declared the state of emergency, and seeing that other grocery chains in the area were securing hazard pay, we requested to enter negotiations with management on this issue and other pressing employee safety measures. After the first meeting between management and the union, it was clear that additional compensation was not going to be an easy win. We took to social media to communicate with our union membership with updates about bargaining, but saw a lot of engagement from community members. When it was clear that hazard pay was something we were going to have to fight tooth and nail for, we began a fairly simple social media campaign. 

We had members fill out a sheet of paper with why they deserve hazard pay, and take a photo with it to post online. This was particularly effective for a few reasons: 1) We put faces to our struggle. It is one thing to read a story about a person's working conditions. It’s another thing entirely to see the face of that person and, especially for co-op members, recognize that community member and 2) as individuals shelter in place, there’s an increase in screen time! This resulted in hundreds of thousands of people seeing our posts, and they were shared literally coast to coast. 

We made sure to create a VERY clear ask in our posts, and made sure it was the same with each photo shared. We requested that people reach out to Co-op leadership and demand hazard pay, PPE, and other protections for employees. With a new abundance of time that could be used flexibly, there was an outpouring of calls and emails to our General Manager that most certainly had an impact at the next bargaining session. This barrage of  communication from community members near and far meant that Co-op management was faced with a real dilemma- give employees hazard pay and save the Co-op’s public image, or lose a significant amount of business and equity from disappointed Co-op members. We are delighted that management and the union were able to settle on a fair hazard pay, and that we get this moment in time to start to re-align the Co-op with it’s founding values.  

These are major victories yet there are you still issues the City Market workers face.

We're still seeing an influx of customers coming in to only buy a few items, which continues to put our employees at an increased risk of exposure. I think as we fully implement store capacity limits, individuals will be more conscious of what they are coming in for and shopping more efficiently.  We've also been working with Management to figure out how to best handle the influx of delivery and curbside pickup requests, which has been hard with the current staffing levels on our delivery team.

How can fellow workers show solidarity with the employees of City Market?

One of the greatest things that has happened from this crisis is the power shift from management believing they hold power to the union and co-op members realizing the power they hold. When our posts were being shared and questions were asked on the Co-op social media posts, as well as individuals calling and emailing in their concerns for employee safety, it was a clear message to Management that not only were the union's demands founded, they were backed by the co-op equity holders. 

So continue to share our posts, question decisions that are founded on public image and not employee safety, and please, please don't come to the store if you aren't feeling well! Shop quickly, with protection, and always practice social distancing- or at least the most you can in our small aisles.

The cooperation between community members and store employees is an inspiring example of workers’ ability to effectively wield collective power in order to create necessary change. 

Do you have anything else to add?

A huge thank you to all those who took the time to join our fight for hazard pay and safe working conditions- so many of us literally found the strength to keep going to work knowing that you all had our back and are fighting with us. Solidarity forever!