After a tough two-year battle, the workers at Rite Aid’s distribution center in Lancaster, CA, won their fight to join ILWU warehouse Local 26. They prevailed despite Rite Aid’s all-out effort to squash their organizing drive.

They overcame the flaws in U.S. labor law that make it almost impossible for workers to form unions. And they gave the ILWU its largest mainland organizing victory that anyone can remember, sending a hopeful signal to other workers on the inland end of the maritime logistics chain. 

    “I am so happy right now,” organizing committee member Ignacio “Nacho” Meza said just after the March 14 vote count. “We had to make sacrifices, but we showed that if we stand together, if we speak up, we can make changes for ourselves, our families and the people who come after us.” Rite Aid fired Meza in January 2007 for his support of the union, but had to rehire him six months later as part of a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

    The million-square-foot warehouse where Meza works serves more than 500 Rite Aid retail outlets in the Pacific Southwest. Most of its inbound freight and inventory is shipped from the Pearl River Delta in China through the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, then trucked 80 miles up to the desert in Antelope Valley.

    As logistics work has moved inland to places like Lancaster, employment has gone up—but working standards have gone down. Most of the new jobs are lower-paid and non-union. In fact, many companies hire through temp agencies, leaving workers with even fewer rights, little or no benefits, and less protection than other non-union workers.

    Workers at Rite Aid’s Lancaster facility began organizing in March 2006. They wanted an end to mandatory overtime piled on top of
ten-hour shifts, and to address punishing production quotas. They’d had enough of sweating through desert summers with no air conditioning in their work areas, and being employed “at will” with no job security. More than anything else, they wanted to be treated decently.

    “Finally we can have some respect and dignity,” committee member Debbie Kaliff said. “This is huge. It levels the playing field for us.”

    Rite Aid responded to the workers’ concerns with an all-out anti-union campaign that landed it on the wrong side of the law. A months-long
investigation by the National Labor Relations Board found enough evidence to try Rite Aid on 49 labor law violations. These included disciplining, demoting, suspending and firing union supporters; threatening that people would lose their raises if they voted for the union; interrogating people about their union activities and sympathies, and publicly disparaging union supporters.

    The company settled in May 2007 rather than face an NLRB judge, but paid only a small price. The settlement required Rite Aid to re-hire Meza and another worker who had been fired for openly supporting the ILWU, and pay them back wages plus interest. The company also had to post a notice in the warehouse informing employees of their rights and promising to respect them. The notice said, in effect, “We didn’t do anything wrong but we’ll never do it again.”

    And while labor law does little to penalize violators, it does even less to even out the balance of power between management and workers. At Rite Aid, as in any workplace, the company had unlimited access to the workers. Union supporters could only talk organizing with their co-workers when they were all “off the clock.” The union didn’t even get a list of voters until three weeks before the election, and the list did not have to be complete.

    But when the votes were in, 283 workers in the warehouse voted “union yes,” 261 voted “no.” Rite Aid decided not to challenge the election, and the NLRB made the results official
March 21.

    “The keys to success here were a grassroots campaign led by the workers themselves, terrific support from the ILWU organizing team, and volunteers from locals in Southern California—including many longshore workers—who travelled to Lancaster on weekends to visit workers in their homes and explain how important it is to have a union,” explained ILWU International Vice President Joe Radisich, who spent a weekend  visiting workers in Lancaster.

    ILWU members also hit the streets of San Pedro for a lively rally in front of a Rite Aid store last spring, and caravanned to Lancaster for another rally in December. Pensioners pitched in, leafleting at Rite Aid stores up and down the Coast. The Antelope Valley Community Labor Coalition and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, offered tremendous support, mobilizing members for actions and putting the Rite Aid worker’s struggle on the map. A dozen Teamster organizers supported the effort last year during a weekend of worker outreach with ILWU and other union members.

    “Now the Rite Aid workers will need to negotiate their first contract, and we’ll continue to help them through that process as well,” said International President Bob McEllrath. “The future of our union will depend on helping workers at the new ‘inland ports’ and warehouses of the future. The Rite Aid victory is an important step in that direction.”

 – Marcy Rein