Dear Debra and Janice,
Rather than ask you to sign a pledge, I thought I would simply request your assistance in the ILWU struggle for union recognition at Rite Aid. I’ve written a letter to the corporate headquarters, explaining why I support the union’s boycott and urging the company to respect collective bargaining rights.
Please join me and rank and file ILWU members at the harbor in boycotting this store and urging your supporters to do likewise. Together, we can condemn all anti-union rhetoric and lend our support to workers living in fear of employer retribution. As my ILWU brothers and sisters remind us, “An injury to one is an injury to all,” so let us be staunch advocates of self-determination at the workplace.
Your sister in struggle,
Marcy Winograd
4.1.2001 * ILWU Rally, San Pedro, California
[My letter to Rite Aid below the jump]
Rite Aid Corporation
c/o Corporate Secretary
P.O. Box 3165
Harrisburg, PA 17105
[email protected].April 5, 2011
Dear Rite Aid Board of Directors:
As a candidate for California’s 36th congressional district, I join the ILWU in boycotting your stores until Rite Aid agrees to bargain in good faith with its workers. I am referring to warehouse employees, working under sweltering conditions, at your Rite Aid store in Lancaster. These workers deserve to be treated humanely and in accordance with the union certification they won years ago. To express my support for these workers’ demands, I joined with ILWU workers in the Los Angeles harbor to walk the picket line in front of Rite Aid in San Pedro. Following the picket, I learned more about Rite Aid’s record with labor:
***In Ohio, workers at six Rite Aid stores began a strike on March 14th to protest the company’s violation of employee and union rights. Rite Aid’s also trying to cut their health benefits;
***At the giant Lancaster, CA, distribution center, Rite Aid is trying to gouge employees by marking-up their cost of health insurance by 28 times over the increases being charged by insurers.
***In Pennsylvania, Rite Aid has been trying extract harsh concessions from store employees for months, weakening morale.
***In New Jersey, Rite Aid also is looking to gouge employees by changing their already expensive health care plan to an even more unaffordable plan and trying to prevent workers at its newly acquired stores from joining a union to secure their rights on the job.
Consequently, I ask thousands of my supporters throughout the nation to join in the ILWU boycott of Rite Aid. I am posting this letter to my 3,000 friends on facebook and tweeting a link to it, so that the message reverberates nationwide. Additionally, I ask my leading opponents in this May 17th special election to join me in boycotting Rite Aid and publicly urging their supporters to do the same.
I look forward to hearing from you – and receiving assurances from your corporate headquarters that your company will respect hard-fought collective bargaining rights.
Sincerely,
Marcy Winograd
[email protected]
13428 Maxella Ave., #359
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
ILWU’s Michael Morales and Marcy Winograd
************
Phil Abraham, Winograd for Congress 2011
Please join me in supporting the ILWU. Sign up at Winograd for Congress 2011.