By Marcy Rein

Warehouse Local 17 came out of its recent contract talks with C&S Wholesale Grocers a double winner. It reached a good deal for its largest house, and scored its first organizing victory in years.

Joint bargaining with the Teamsters guaranteed the local’s success. It also made organizing a key bargaining goal. The agreement ratified April 28 covers 285 members at C&S’s Sacramento Logistics facility, and brings 30 C&S clerks into the local.

“At the ratification meeting I told people, ‘the best thing about the contract is right here: the clerks are in’,” Local 17 President Jeff Carter said.
Local 17 nearly lost the house altogether in 2003 when the former owner declared bankruptcy. Only 110 seniority members were working, and many of them part time. The 2003 contract talks had already started when C&S, the country’s second-largest wholesale grocer, bought the business.

“C&S wanted gigantic takeaways,” said Local 17 Secretary-Treasurer Jack Wyatt Sr. “We called [International Secretary-Treasurer] Willie Adams, and he called John Williams, head of the Teamsters’ Warehouse Division.” The Teamsters represented the loaders and the office clericals at the facility.

With the two unions sitting in on each other’s talks and the Internationals actively involved, Local 17 beat back the takeaways and got a four-year deal they could live with. They immediately began planning for this year’s talks, meeting with the Pacific Grocers Strategy Team, which included Adams, Williams, and the leaders and shop stewards from the ILWU and IBT locals.

“We met every four months for the last three years to talk about strategy,” Adams said. “This year we had the first joint negotiations for a master grocery warehouse contract with the ILWU and the Teamsters in central California.”

This year’s agreement covers C&S workers in Fresno, Tracy, Stockton and Sacramento. They belong to Local 17 and three Teamster locals. Local 17 members will get an extra $1.45 per hour in the first year of the five-year contract. Part will go to wages and part to benefits, such as health care. They will get $1.20 per hour the second year and $1.25 in each of the following years.

“Most of the of the clerks I talked to wanted job stability, so the managers couldn’t just look at you and say, ‘We don’t like how you’re dressing today, you’re out of here,’” said OMS clerk Audrey Corral. “They also felt they could do better on the wage increases.”

The two unions decided even before talks started that they’d ask C&S to recognize the clerks if a majority signed union cards.
ILWU International Organizer Agustin Ramirez helped Local 17 organize a card-signing blitz. Assis-tant chief steward Robert Strom, and stewards Baqi Uddin, Tony Ybarra, and longtime member Willie Willis anchored the effort. In one day, they got signed cards from a majority of the clerks and asked for recognition.

 “Williams and I talked to the lead negotiator at C&S and said, ‘This is what it will take to get a deal,’” Adams said. The company agreed and the clerks were in under the existing contract. The local will negotiate wages and classifications for them separately.

“This really energized us,” Jeff Carter said. “We’re on the move and looking to organize some more.”
The whole ILWU/Teamsters warehouse group has organizing on its mind.

“We will extend our work and focus on developing some plan to deal with health care costs and on joint organizing,” Adams said. He pointed out that the two unions have a long history and are working on building relationships and trust.

“We have a unity agreement with the IBT that dates from our last longshore contract talks in ’02,” he said. “They will be there for us and we for them.”