Latest United Food and Commercial Workers Stories

By Alonso Soto CHICAGO (Reuters) - Representatives from some 900 unions said on Tuesday they would start organizing workers in several countries to pressure multinational companies like retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for better benefits and wages. "We're trying to use globalization to raise working standards," Stephen Lerner, a director with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), said on the sidelines of an international union convention held in Chicago. "Global companies...

By Alonso Soto CHICAGO (Reuters) - Representatives from some 900 unions said on Tuesday they would start organizing workers in several countries to pressure multinational companies like retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for better benefits and wages. "We're trying to use globalization to raise working standards," Stephen Lerner, a director with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), said on the sidelines of an international union convention held in Chicago. "Global companies...

By Alonso Soto CHICAGO (Reuters) - Union leaders from around the globe gather in Chicago next week to craft a joint strategy to boost unionization in the developing world, and especially to target the U.S.-based retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Union Network International's annual convention will gather 1,500 delegates from some 150 countries in Chicago to share labor strategies and discuss ways unions can collaborate over international borders. "We want more organizing initiatives on...

By Andrew Stern CHICAGO (Reuters) - The 1.4-million-member United Food and Commercial Workers broke away from the AFL-CIO on Friday, the third major union to leave the labor organization this week because of differences over how to address declining membership. The 1.8-million-member Service Workers International Union and the 1.4-million-member International Teamsters Union left the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, at the start of its convention...