UFCW 3000 PRESS RELEASE -- From the UFCW 3000 Executive Board

Des Moines, WA -- At an emergency meeting of the Executive Board of Washington State’s largest private sector union, UFCW 3000 endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris for President. We believe that Vice President Kamala Harris can articulate the case against Trump, re-engage the working class, excite the Democratic base, and fight to protect the gains won during the Biden-Harris administration.

We, the over 40 workers elected to serve on our union’s Executive Board, know the urgency and necessity of defeating Donald Trump and that is why we met within hours of President Biden’s announcement. By stepping aside, President Biden has shown by his actions that he was willing to give up the Presidency to save democracy. President Trump showed by his actions that he was willing to give up democracy to save his Presidency.

“We are over 50,000 grocery store workers, health care workers, and others across Washington State and we have endorsed Vice-President Harris for President of the United States,” said Mona Lisa Bauman, an elected Executive Board member of UFCW 3000 who works at Planned Parenthood. “We applaud President Biden for stepping aside and allowing for a new generation of leadership to gain the nomination of the Democratic Party.”

“We feel Vice-President Harris has the ability and the support to win the White House,” added J’nee DeLancey, another UFCW 3000 elected Executive Board member who is a grocery store worker at Town & Country Market. “As a union that is majority women, that has a diverse membership of many people of color, and of immigrants, we are very excited to have such a community-rooted and worker-driven candidate to support.”

 The steps our Union took to get here:

1. Early 2023, UFCW 3000 decided not to make any early endorsement in the Presidential race.

2. In October of 2023, UFCW 3000 was one of the 1st unions in the nation to call for ceasefire in Gaza and helped lead the wave of a massive call from unions across the US to take a strong stand of solidarity against the War in Gaza. We maintain our solidarity with Palestinian workers and people and will continue fighting for a permanent ceasefire.

3. In February 2024, UFCW 3000 endorsed an “Uncommitted” stance in the Democratic Primary in Washington state.  We made it clear that once the Democrat’s Convention had nominated a candidate for President, we were committed to doing whatever we could do to defeat Donald Trump because of all the threats of a second term of Trump to workers’ rights, peace, women’s right, civil rights, and the rule of law. As elected members of our Union, we believe worker and voter democracy are crucial and know that Donald Trump aims at undermine both.

4. On July 18, 2024 UFCW 3000 sent a letter to our WA Congressional Delegation urging them to ask President Biden to step aside from the Presidential race and allow for a new generation of leadership to seek the party’s nomination for President. This call was covered in local and national news coverage on Friday, July 19th.

5. On July 21, 2024 immediately after President Biden announced he was stepping aside, we issued a statement thanking President Biden for his decades of service and for stepping aside.

UFCW 3000 was an early endorser of Senator Obama in his race for the White House in 2008. In 2020 we dedicated massive resources to support Biden in his race to defeat Donal Trump, especially in close swing-state races. And we are also proud of our role in calling for a ceasefire and for endorsing an uncommitted vote in our state’s primary. In the coming weeks, we will begin preparing the deployment of resources, after the Convention, to make sure that Harris wins and defeats Donald Trump in November.

UFCW 3000 is the largest private sector union in Washington State with over 50,000 members working in grocery stores, retail, heath care, food processing, cannabis and other industries, building a powerful union that fights for economic, political, and social justice in our workplaces and in our communities.