80 employees in twelve facilities join United Food & Commercial Workers Union
LANDOVER, Md. (April 29, 2022) – A majority of employees at twelve Kaiser Permanente facilities signed authorization cards to unionize with the United Food & Commercial Workers. The occupational, physical and speech therapists will be represented by UFCW Local 400 in the DMV area and UFCW Local 27 in the Baltimore region. On Thursday, a third-party arbitrator oversaw the tabulation of union cards and verified the results.
As a result of Thursday’s card count, 63 occupational, physical and speech therapists at ten Kaiser Permanente facilities in the DMV region will be union members represented by UFCW Local 400, while 17 employees at two facilities in Woodlawn and Nottingham in Baltimore will become members of UFCW Local 27.
“We couldn’t be more proud to welcome these health care professionals to our union family,” said Mark Federici, President of UFCW Local 400, headquartered in Landover, Md. “As the country came to recognize over the course of the pandemic, these essential workers not only need but also deserve all of the benefits and protections of a union contract.”
“We were overwhelmed by the support,” said UFCW Local 27 President Jason Chorpenning. “Nearly everyone we talked to supported the union immediately. It was truly inspiring to see and we look forward to working closely with our new union brothers and sisters.”
Both unions already count Kaiser Permanente employees among their ranks. In the DMV region, UFCW Local 400 represents 1,500 Kaiser workers at 36 facilities in Northern Virginia, Washington, DC, and Frederick, Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties in Maryland. The employees serve as nurses, audiologists, anesthetists, physician assistants, nutritionists, and other health care professionals. In the Baltimore region, UFCW Local 27 represents 350 nurses, med techs, social workers, behavioral health therapists and case managers at nine facilities in Maryland in Baltimore, Harford, and Anne Arundel Counties.
Now both unions will meet with Kaiser Permanente to negotiate the details of a union contract covering the newly unionized members.
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United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400 is led by President Mark Federici and represents 35,000 members working in the grocery, retail, health care, food processing, service and other industries in Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C., West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. www.ufcw400.org
United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 27 represents more than 20,000 hard-working men and women in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia in grocery and retail, pharmacy, food processing, chemical processing, meatpacking, manufacturing, cannabis, gaming, and public sectors. www.ufcw27.org