Once again, UNFI the owners of have chosen to share partial information with reporters and investors about the future of Shoppers Food & Pharmacy while leaving our union and the hardworking members who work at Shoppers in the dark.
Today, UFCW Local 400 President Mark Federici sent a letter to Steven Spinner, CEO of Shopper’s parent company UNFI, demanding more information on the future of Shoppers.
The full text of the letter is below.
Today’s letter comes after months of silence from the company. We sent a letter in March and Mr. Spinner refused to respond. We held a week of action at stores throughout the region in June to demand answers. Still nothing. A few weeks later, our story we were featured in the Washington Post and other news outlets, yet Mr. Spinner has continued to refuse to respond to us.
Enough is enough. We are sick of reading about the future of Shoppers in the news instead of directly from the company’s leadership. We deserve to know what the future holds. You deserve to know what will happen to your livelihoods.
Today we once again have demanded answers from Mr. Spinner and the rest of UNFI leadership. You can read the full text of our letter below.
In the meantime, we must continue to stand together as union members and be ready to do whatever is necessary to protect what we have. Without our union, we would be nothing but an afterthought in this deal. With our union and our solidarity, we have the power to fight to preserve our wages, benefits, and jobs. We will work together to make sure that happens.
Our Letter to Steven Spinner, CEO, UNFI
Dear Mr. Spinner:
Although it seems that you are happy to share the news of an “imminent sale” of the Shoppers Food and Pharmacy stores with the press and investors, you continue to refuse to share information with your own employees or the Union that represents them.
For more than a year, Local 400 has continually demanded that you involve the people with the most at stake in these sales – the employees who make Shoppers an ongoing business worth selling – only to be met with silence and evasion by you. Since it is clear you are, in your own words, going to sell Shoppers stores in “early 2020,” the time has come to share with the Union who represents Shoppers employees the information you have concerning these imminent sales. As we have stated previously, we are willing to enter into a reasonable confidentiality agreement in order to insure the interests of our members are protected.
Not only from a legal, but from a moral perspective, you have a solemn obligation not to continue to let your loyal employees slowly twist in the wind during this process. The uncertainty these employees have lived with and are living with for their families and futures is unconscionable. We will expect an immediate response with dates and times when we can meet to discuss the future of Shoppers and its employees.
Sincerely,
Mark P. Federici
President and International Vice President
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