Two fast food organizers employed by the National Fast Food Workers Union (an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union) were recently laid off from their jobs.
The United Media Guild organized those NFFWU organizers in 2017 and, following a year of bargaining with that employer, secured a first contract in December of 2018. It is one of our newest bargaining units with close to 50 workers in roughly 20 cities across the U.S.
Both of the women, who work in the southeast, had run-ins with a supervisor and filed harassment complaints about him with NFFWU Human Resources (the Guild had also previously filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the NLRB because of remarks made by that supervisor regarding one of the laid off women, who is also the Guild steward for that region).
So far the supervisor has not been held accountable for any of his actions and, in February, it was announced that layoffs were in the offing. The Guild was informed that the layoffs would be based on what we were told was a comprehensive “Deep Dive” analysis of specific data points for each city. And, when the layoffs were announced, the only cities affected were Atlanta and Greenville. And that is where those women who filed harassment complaints are employed. In fact, those women were the ONLY two in the entire bargaining unit to lose their jobs.
The United Media Guild understands the times in which we live and we realize that there are times when, no matter how much it hurts, an employer may have to make cuts. But we have a real problem with this.
We have filed a grievance and we have also requested the data study that the NFFWU cited as the reason for their decision. In fact, in the three weeks since the layoffs, we have requested that information three separate times. As of yet, it has not been provided.