UFCW Union Members Defend Hard Work and Health Coverage

Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - October 22, 2003

More than 80,000 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union have been on strike across the United States in order to protect their livelihoods and save health care coverage. Workers in St. Louis, Mo., began setting up picket lines on October 7, while workers in Southern California did the same just a few days later. In Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky, thousands of other supermarket workers also began a strike, vowing to remain behind the picket lines until their company agrees to provide decent health care benefits.

The UFCW said in a statement that employers, which include several major supermarket chains, are "afraid to tell the truth because they know the public would be revolted by the unrestrained greed and the total disregard for human need contained in their demands."