- Created first-of-its-kind contract transparency platform serving 700,000 UFCW grocery workers across North America, revealing wage disparities of $7+/hour for the same job.
- Built mobile-first React app enabling side-by-side contract comparison across 28 locals and major employers (Kroger, Albertsons), empowering workers to fight for better terms.
- Developed worker-driven CMS allowing direct contract submissions, building grassroots database to support coordinated bargaining toward a master agreement covering all 700,000 workers.
The Problem
Grocery store workers are essential, but often underpaid for the hard work they do. The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) represents 700,000 grocery workers at countless stores across North America. But critically, they don’t have a master contract, which creates a patchwork of hundreds of separate agreements with widely different terms. This cuts at workers’ ability to win better contracts and have greater leverage across the country.
Often, workers don’t even have access to their own local’s contracts, while employers have access to contract details nationwide and use that information to push workers toward lower wages and worse conditions.
Workers at a Kroger in Seattle may be paid $21.01/hour, while workers doing the same job at a Kroger in Cincinnati start at $13.50/hour. With greater transparency and worker participation, workers are equipped to fight for more.
Solution
Working with Essential Workers for Democracy, a grassroots movement to reform and revitalize the labor movement for essential workers, I built a first-of-its-kind contract comparison tool that puts power back into the hands of hundreds of thousands grocery workers.
I built a mobile-first React app that allows workers to quickly effectively:
- Compare contracts side-by-side across 28 different locals and employers
- Filter by region and company (Kroger, Albertsons, etc.) to see how their contract stacks up
- Create temporary comparisons to model what they could fight for in their next negotiation
- Submit their own contracts to add to the growing database
Additionally, there’s a simple CMS and contract application system that allows workers to submit their contracts and enables EW4D staff to add and update contracts as new ones are ratified.
Impact
Workers are discovering significant pay disparities and gaps in staffing protections. Any of the 700,000 workers can visit the site and quickly compare how other stores are doing. This empowers them to organize for better contract language and become active participants in bargaining for stronger agreements.
Long term, this tool is about building toward coordinated bargaining and ultimately a master agreement covering all 700,000 workers. It connects a fractured landscape of workers, showing them they can organize for better conditions and that collective action wins results. It was a pleasure creating this tool that empowers workers to have greater control over their working lives.