The below letter is to be sent to the leadership of Fred Meyer expressing our support for their Teamsters members.
To the management of Fred Meyer:
We are the elected bargaining team of the Registered Nurses at the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, a union that represents nearly 6,000 healthcare and front-line workers in Oregon and Southwest Washington. We are writing today to stand in solidarity with our Teamster union siblings of Local 117 in their struggle for a fair contract.
We have cared for and watched too many of our community members become infected with the COVID virus because of ineffective protections of front-line workers. Their safety, much like our own, has often been sacrificed for company and corporate profits. And yet your employees and our members did their jobs and kept their communities afloat while we awaited a return to normal life.
In this pandemic, we were reminded of a couple of things. First, we remembered that our safety cannot be guaranteed when left to the sole discretion of those that should be unequivocally invested in our safety on the job. And secondly, that when working people speak up about their working conditions, they need to be heard.
Our members have been proud to shop at Fred Meyer stores. We take satisfaction in supporting our working brothers and sisters that have joined in union to make a better company and better communities. But we do not enjoy the thought of our hard-earned money being spent at merchants who use our sales to fight against what working people are standing up for.
At OFNHP, our members know what it means to authorize a strike. We know that it takes so much courage to stand up and tell the boss that you refuse to go to work and refuse to get a paycheck until the employer agrees to something that is so important to you. And it takes a community of support to have those workers’ backs.
To be clear, our Bargaining Team of Registered Nurses will be instructing each and every one of our members to be prepared to honor the picket lines of striking workers at Fred Meyer if they are needed. We will be united and choose to do our business with other merchants until Local 117 has their demands met.
Working people stand together. In the hospital, the clinic, the grocery store, and the warehouse. We link arms and remain united.
In solidarity with our brothers, sisters, and siblings of IBT Local 117,
Joshua A. Holt, Chair of the Registered Nurses
Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals
American Federation of Teachers, Local 5017, AFL-CIO