For Immediate Release
May 13, 2025
Minneapolis, MN– Local UFCW 663 Workers at UNFI/Cub Foods, the largest grocery store owner in Minneapolis with 33 stores and nearly 3,000 workers, as well as workers at Haug’s and Knowlan’s Festival, voted to reject contract offers from the employers. The companies’ offers would have shifted a larger share of health care costs to workers, failed to provide the kind of raises workers need to live, sought concessions from the union, and, generally, failed to listen to the needs of their employees. The Union has also filed unfair labor practice charges challenging UNFI/Cub Foods failure to bargain in good faith, and alleges additional violations of the NLRA by Haug’s and Knowlan’s Festival. The companies’ inadequate offers and unlawful conduct has set the union on a path to potential strikes.
“We’re fighting to keep our healthcare plan right where we have it,” said Nate Moist, meat manager at UNFI Cub Foods in Monticello. “I have a wife and three kids, so my healthcare plans would triple every week if we accepted the company’s offer. More money out of pocket means less for my family. UNFI is not countering that increased cost with higher wages. We are not keeping up with inflation if we are breaking even every paycheck.”
Strikes could involve as many as 2,800 workers at 38 stores throughout the Minneapolis area.
“UNFI sets the standard in Minneapolis, and workers there are fighting for a new standard for all grocery workers,” said UFCW President Rena Wong. “Workers at stores owned by UNFI are willing to do what it takes to fight for their families, and for consumers, and we are ready and willing to strike, fight, and win.”
UFCW 663 grocery workers in the Twin Cities have been negotiating contracts with seven owners in the Twin Cities area. Over the weekend, workers at four grocery companies (Lunds & Byerly’s, Jerry’s Enterprises, Kowalski’s, and Radermacher’s Shakopee Cub) ratified new contracts. The offers made by these companies responded to the specific needs at their companies, from increasing wages for courtesy workers at L&B, improving starting wages at Jerry’s, to adding new HRA contributions to help ease rising healthcare costs.
Many grocery store workers have to work multiple jobs to pay the rent and keep food on the table. Meanwhile, workers are also being asked to do more with less. Stores are running on skeleton crews. This hurts both workers and consumers, who may not find the products they need because there aren’t enough workers to get them on the shelves. In fact, in a recent consumer survey run by UFCW 663, consumers flagged staffing shortages as a significant issue.
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UFCW Local 663 represents more than 17,000 hard-working retail, meat packing and processing, food preparation and manufacturing, healthcare, and other workers in Minnesota and Iowa. We strive to improve the lives of our members and of all working families by fighting for economic, political, and social justice in our workplaces and communities. UFCW Local 663 is part of the 1.3 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
Contact: Jessica Hayssen, jessicah@ufcw663.org
651-261-8559