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British
multinational behaves badly in the US: British commerce multinational Sainsbury's has joined France's PPR in behaving unbelievably badly towards its American workers. Shaw's, the Sainsbury's subsidiary, is now cashing in from its employees, charging them retroactively for holidays already paid. UNI Commerce affiliate UFCW has filed a class action grievance against the British-owned company. Long term Shaw's employees in Worcester got a holiday surprise a few months late when they found out that the supermarket operator had charged them retroactively for their previously paid 2001 Christmas and 2002 New Year holidays. As part of Shaw's campaign to bust the workers' union, the company unilaterally announced on February 28 that it would no longer recognize the union contract that provided the paid holidays. The company then decided on April 1 to back track on the paid time off and charge employees for previous holiday time. The workers' union, Local 1445 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), is taking action to get the time back for Worcester-area employees of Shaw's. The UFCW filed a class action grievance that covers all employees who may have had time-off ripped-off. The company is already under federal investigation for alleged labor law violations, including making illegal unilateral changes in working conditions. The time-off rip-off cost some employees more than the holidays. A veteran employee with 18 years of service has scheduled long awaited family vacation to Disney World. Under his UFCW contract, he had 3 weeks of vacation. When Shaw's reneged on the promises made in the union contract, he lost his Disney vacation time, and his family didn't have Dad along for the trip of a lifetime. The UFCW class action grievance would get back the ripped-off time-off for any of the 1,700 Shaw's employees who lost time. The grievance demands that the company restore all paid holiday, vacation, sick and personal time due employees under the contract. All affected employees would be made whole for any and all loss of pay and benefits that they suffered as the result of Shaw's action. The British-owned Shaw's has been waging war with the workers' right to have a union. Charges filed with the National Labor Relations Board NLRB allege that the company illegally supported efforts to eliminate union representation; and, even threatened exorbitant and unnecessary increases in the employee cost for health insurance in order to suppress support for the union. Despite Shaw's efforts to short circuit the workers' right to representation, UFCW Local 1445 has been aggressively representing Shaw's workers. Local Union President Richard Charette and UFCW International Vice President Bill Danio were recently arrested for distributing information to workers at a Worcester Shaw's store.
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