Corporate America must share wealth, Hoffa and other Teamster leaders tell ralliers in Puyallup

The head of one of America’s largest unions brought his “Stop the War on Workers” offensive to Puyallup on Friday.

James Hoffa, Teamsters Union general president, told a Puyallup rally that the union has fought back attempts to diminish union rights in more than a dozen states.

“This is the face of the war on workers,” Hoffa told some 200 sympathizers outside a Puyallup recreation center. “That war may be in Wisconsin. It may be in Ohio, but today, it’s right here,” he said.

Hoffa is the son of noted Teamster union leader Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared without a trace in 1975. The junior Hoffa has been president of the 1.4 million-member Teamsters Union since 1998.

The rally was aimed at Northwest grocer Fred Meyer Stores and its corporate parent, Kroger. Teamsters Local 117, which represents about 360 workers in Fred Meyer’s Puyallup distribution warehouse, is in the midst of negotiations for a new contract.

Hoffa and union workers weren’t the only ones protesting at the rally. A handful of tea party members held a counter rally at the entrance to the recreation center parking lot.

Leon Donahue, a member of the counter group, said he wants Hoffa to apologize for calling members of the conservative party “sons of bitches” at a Labor Day rally attended by President Barack Obama.

“I think we deserve an apology, and the president needs to scold him for making such a remark,” Donahue said.

Hoffa, in a pre-rally news conference, said he wasn’t retracting the statement. Many have told him they admire his blunt approach, he said. A pilot on a flight this week, he said, came back to tell him how he appreciated his candor.

Hoffa and Teamster leaders at the rally said corporate America needs to share its profits with the workers who earned that money for them.

Kroger on Friday reported its second quarter profits were up 7.3 percent over last year’s second quarter to $280.3 million. The grocer chain’s revenues jumped 11.5 percent.

The company warned that shoppers were being more conservative in their purchases, buying more store brands and purchasing fewer items per trip.

Fred Meyer, said Hoffa, is refusing to follow other grocery chains in adopting a health care plan more affordable for the Puyallup warehouse workers.

Josh Putnam, one of the workers, told the crowd that Fred Meyer deductibles and costs for health care are becoming unaffordable.

Melinda Merrill, a Fred Meyer spokeswoman, said the union wants the company to adopt the union-sponsored health care plan instead of the health care plan that most Fred Meyer employees now use.

“That health care plan has served us well in Puyallup for 16 years,” she said. Warehouse workers in the past agreed to accept the company’s private health care plan in exchange for higher wages than workers make in other union distribution centers, she said.

Union workers in the Fred Meyer warehouse, she said, make $2,500 to $3,300 more in cash wages than workers in rival grocery stores’ warehouses, she said.

But Teamster officials claimed that the deductible in the Fred Meyer plan is so high, it deters some workers from getting the health care they need.

Merrill said that deductible varies by which plan the worker chooses, but it typically ranges from $1,000 to $1,500 a year.

John Gillie: 253-597-8663
john.gillie@thenewstribune.com