(A message from DFNYC members Bernadette Evangelist and Michael Minn)

FreshDirect is a company that allows New York City shoppers to order groceries online and have them delivered directly to their home. While there are questions about environmental effects of large fleets of idling trucks delivering overpackaged groceries to a limited group of affluent neighborhoods, for those New Yorkers with more money than time, it is a helpful service.

But the clean white trucks and efficient service hide a possibly darker side. In the 9/28/07 edition of the Daily News, Juan Gonzalez reported that two FreshDirect warehouse workers were fired within days after it became publicly known they were attempting to organize fellow workers under the auspices of Teamsters Local 805. Warehouse workers start at $7.60 an hour in the first year, rising to $8.25 in the second with differentials for work at night or in refrigerated areas. Workers claim they are often forced to work 12 or 14 hour days and are suspended when they refuse.

Company officials responsed to accusations of union-busting that one of the employees was dismissed for being drunk on the job and the other for repeated absences. Although the company often attempts to appear agnostic with regards to the unionization effort, copies of flyers distributed by the company that were covered in the NY Times read:

FreshDirect is growing and performance is improving, but we have yet to have a profitable year, and investors have yet to recoup any of the millions of dollars invested...Union jobs are disappearing; the best and fastest growing companies are union-free, where employees work with management so everyone can be successful. Be smart: don't sign a union authorization card.

Another flyer warned workers that union dues could be up to $400 per year in after-tax pay and that:

Unions can't guarantee anything, except that you will pay their dues.

Hardly an indication that they are a progressive company, regardless of publicised initiatives to be more environmentally conscious.

Legendary hard-nosed recruiting tactics by the Teamsters as well as a reputed turf war between the Teamsters and the UFCW makes it difficult to figure out what is true or right in this situation. So one of our members decided to write FreshDirect and express her concerns:

Attn: Mr. Jim Moore, VP for Business

Dear Mr. Moore,

As a customer and advocate of workers' rights, I was distressed to read about the situation at your LIC warehouse. I hope you will work to provide fair and safe working conditions for your employees and allow their efforts to organize and belong to a union.

Your intentions and good will would be demonstrated by reinstating suspended workers and rehiring Loreto Gomez and Lonnie Powell whose firings were at best suspect.

FreshDirect is a wonderful idea and service, but it can only work if everyone benefits from its success.

Yours truly,
Bernadette Evangelist

The form-letter response from the PR department was equally pleasant, but still carried an obvious anti-union tone:

Dear Bernadette,

Thank you for your note and for being a customer. I assure you that we care about our employees as we do the food our customers feed their families. I wanted to respond to your note to Jim Moore, who is currently out of the office.

The choice of union representation is the choice of employees, not employers. In Transportation our employees voted to join a union. So we negotiated in good faith with the elected union and for the last several months our Transportation employees have been operating under a union contract. Currently over 400 FreshDirect employees are union members. The two people you site in your email were fired for job related performance--one showed up at work drunk, which we can't condone.

There are many things FreshDirect does for our employees that union leaders don't publicize:

• All employees are offered health care coverage after 6 months. Its good health care. FreshDirect chooses to bear a significant portion of the healthcare costs of our employees and "single" healthcare coverage is currently offered for as low as $5 per week. We are proud to offer our employees reasonably priced healthcare choices.
• We run a free employee shuttle from the 7 train subway stop close to FreshDirect. We run that shuttle 24 hours a day. It offers a little extra safety and security to our employees with the 24 hour nature of our business.
• All employees receive 20% off their purchases from FreshDirect--- off of our already low prices. 20% off of our President's Picks sale prices. Lower prices than most of our employees' neighborhood markets, and better, fresher food too.
• We offer all employees in our plant hot meals for just $4. Every day.
• We offer a 401K.
• NY City just gave us a $250,000 training grant to further develop our employees and build their skill base. We are currently developing and implementing the training programs we co-fund with that grant. This gives our employees further opportunities to grow with-in our company. And of course, training and skills that are theirs to keep for their lifetimes.

We work everyday to make improvements in our service for our customers and employees. I hope these thoughts are helpful to you.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if you need anything else.

Sincerely,
Dana Smith
Director of Marketing

So, what should a progressive shopper in New York City do? Hard to say. Rumors that their customer service department may soon get offshored to Canada also add a certain irony to the letter. The union organizing effort continues...stay tuned...or contact them yourself:

Website Contact Form
1-212-796-8002.

Education financing legislation has made its way through the U.S. Senate, House, congressional conference committee and was signed by the president on Sep. 27.  While the final version of the bill, H.R. 2669, should be considered a good step, it did take on some serious water in the reconciliation process.  Interest rate reductions are still included, though in limited form, Pell Grant increases survived as well as watered-down versions of Income-Based-Repayment and debt forgiveness.  Much warranted cuts in loan insurance for private lenders will pay for much of the legislation and will help to reduce the subsidization of corporate lender profits. Here is a summary of some of the more significant provisions.

UPDATE 9/29/07: The LA Times is reporting on their blog in a followup to an earlier article in the paper that the initiative to split California's electoral votes is basically dead due to, "the resignation of key supporters, internal disputes and a lack of funds." Although this episode demonstrates the old maxim that sunlight is the best disinfectant, it should also remind us to remain vigilant for other dirty tricks that are most certainly in the pipeline for 2008.

WRITE YOUR CALIFORNIA FRIENDS AND SAVE THE 2008 ELECTION

A front group for the California GOP is pushing to get an initiative on the ballot next summer that would split California's electoral votes by congressional district. While this sounds like a good first step towards getting rid of the electoral college and moving to something like a direct popular vote for president, splitting only the votes of the nation's largest Democratic state while not splitting other Republican-dominated states (like the 34 consistently Republican electoral votes of Texas) is simply an attempt to "steal" the 2008 election. If the "Presidential Election Reform Act" passes, this would likely result in a loss of around 22 electoral votes - equivalent to the loss of Illinois, Pennsylvania or Ohio. It could put Giuliani in the White House...for eight long years.

Complicating matters is the placement of this initiative on the June 2008 state primary ballot, an obscure, low-turnout election during vacation season that will be dominated by party activists and could be won with only a handful of votes.

So what can you do? Personally e-mail or call your Democratic friends that live in California. Make sure they know about the "Presidential Election Reform Act" and make sure they're registered to vote. Then, send them a reminder e-mail on election day, June 3, 2008, to make sure they get out and defeat this initiative.

For more information on the "Presidential Election Reform Act" and the nefarious forces behind it:

www.mediatransparency.org

sfgate.com

www.cnn.com