Persistance pays off in organizing new members
April 30, 2024
Hayward Pepsi warehouse workers overwhelmingly voted to join Local 70 January.
Local 70 recently had two successful organizing drives. The drivers and warehouse workers at Emerald Textiles reached out to Business Agent Henry Buchanan about joining our Local. Working conditions and pay were the issues at the top of their list. After a month-long election period, the workers voted unanimously to join Local 70. Henry is now engaged in contract negotiations with the company.
Local 70 has attempted many times to organize the warehouse workers at Pepsi in Hayward without success. When a few of the workers approached us about giving it another shot, we were cautious. After giving their worker-led committee benchmarks to obtain, they exceeded them each time. We filed our petition shortly before Christmas and in mid-January we had the election, which led to an overwhelming vote to join Local 70. This is a long sought-after victory, and negotiations with Business Agent Rich Fierro are scheduled to begin in mid-April.
