About Russ Blunden
I, Russ Blunden, am one of you. For the past 25 years, I have worked for Meijer, stocking shelves and unloading trailers. I started at Meijer store #37 during June 1981 as a night grocery stocker. When store #55 opened in Sterling Heights in 1986, I chose to go, where I remained a grocery receiver until last year. I decided it was time for a change, so I returned to grocery as a stocker, the same job I had when I began at Meijer 25 years ago.
I have seen the problems and hardships our union members face each day — because I face them, too.
Our current union leaders have never worked the jobs we have, done the things we have done. Instead, they are politicians of the worst sort: those who have no connection to, understanding of, or appreciation for the people they were chosen to lead. They don’t care about us.
That isn’t right.
We are tired of watching the current leadership of Local 951 take our money and ignore our concerns. We are not a union. We are disorganized, a union with members that don’t know their rights because that important information is withheld from us, withheld to keep us weak and unimposing, no threat to the current leadership’s “kingdom.”
Union officials control our money and make decisions based on their wants, not our needs. We no longer have a voice in our own affairs. Our inability to participate is by the union’s design, and for that reason, Local 951 has become what it is: complacent, uncaring, self-serving and dictatorial.
So, in 2004, I ran for the Local 951 presidency. According to Robert Potter’s handpicked ballot counters, I lost — by only 761 votes. But afterward, I challenged the results because some concerned union members informed me that Local 951 might have illegally influenced the election. The union, through its own internal investigation, said they found no discrepancies, problems or issues. The union said the election was fair.
So I approached the UFCW’s International leadership, again challenging the election results. I received no response.
Finally, I approached the U.S. Department of Labor regarding the complaints about the election.
The DOL’s investigation (Case Number 1:05CV0638) compiled enough evidence to file a lawsuit against Local 951 in late 2005. According to a news release issued by the DOL (Press Release Number 05-1796-CHI) ,the U.S. Attorney’s office in Grand Rapids, Mich., had filed suit, seeking a court order directing Local 951 to rerun the election under the supervision of the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS). The government stated that Local 951 did interfere in the 2004 election, enough to change the outcome. In other words, I could have won.
The DOL’s complaints include but are not limited to:
- Union members voted in the presence of union officials and other members;
- The union discriminated with respect to the use of a union list;
- Union officials distributed and collected ballots at worksites;
- Some unused ballots were unaccounted for and election records were not retained for the period required by the Act;
- The union failed to provide adequate safeguards for the distribution of replacement ballots, denied eligible members the right to vote, and both union and employer resources were used to promote the incumbent.
- The union used bribery (in the form of material goods) and intimidation to solicit votes for Robert Potter.
The government, despite Robert Potter’s numerous statements that Local 951 had done nothing wrong, had obviously complied enough evidence to believe otherwise. So if the government doesn’t believe our union, why should we? Should you believe a union that is going to court because of alleged improprieties and misconduct? No, you shouldn’t.
And Marv Russow is no better. The International’s solution was simple: remove Potter, put in Russow and try to make things seem better. Russow is the UFCW’s form of damage control. This is Russow’s third time serving as a UFCW spin doctor for compromised, troubled union locals. But things aren’t better under Russow. If the International or Russow wanted to change things, they would have rebuilt Local 951 from the ground up — but they didn’t. They want to keep things the same.
But it’s time for change.
Remember, Local 951 is not a union for its members. It is a union that avoids confrontation with company leadership and openly ignores member complaints. In Local 951, union officials, not members, come first. Local 951 has become an ineffective organization that has no problem taking union dues from every member and doing absolutely nothing to earn them.
The Preamble to the International UFCW states that the “International Union was created in order to elevate the social and economic status of workers and, further, to advance the principles and practice of freedom and democracy for all.”
That isn’t what is happening at Local 951.
The UFCW, including Local 951, has become a union created to elevate the social and economic status of union officials, their family members and union representatives. It has advanced the self-serving, unethical practices of union leadership, with freedom and democracy for no one.
The union has become an organization in which the union members, the ones whom the union is supposed to serve, are afraid to say how they feel and what they believe. The union gives no reason for its membership to trust or believe in the UFCW. It has become an organization of money collectors. The union does not live up to its moral, democratic or leadership obligations, but rather, openly ignores them.
That is why I, Russ Blunden, am asking for your help. As president of Local 951, I will make this a union again. Things need to change, and that time for change is now. We, as members, need to acknowledge and address the misuse of power and funds by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 951, and ultimately, help educate and organize members to take back their union.
I want to change Local 951 from a complacent, ineffective, money-making
“business” into an actual, working union that serves the needs of
its due-paying membership and does what a union should do: help and
protect the people it is meant to serve.
I want a better union, and you deserve a better union.
This election isn’t about me. It’s about us.
It’s time for change.