US Foods strike spreads to St. Louis, Buffalo

Stay strong, brother!

The maintenance workers' strike at US Foods that began in Streator, Ill., on Sunday is spreading to Buffalo and St. Louis today. Teamsters represented at US Foods facilities there can refuse to cross primary picket lines. In a stirring show of solidarity, all 265 workers in St. Louis and Buffalo -- and all 95 warehouse workers in Streator -- are refusing to cross the picket lines.

@USFoodsWorkers tweeted:

Truck turned away at #USFoods #St. Louis, driver to striking #Teamsters: "but I have a bunch of frozen fruit! What should I do with it?"

We have some thoughts....

Here's the Teamsters press release explaining more of what happened:

US Foods disciplined a worker for being absent while he was in contract negotiations with the company as part of the bargaining committee. U.S. Foods, which distributes food and related products to restaurants, military bases and hospitals, is owned by private equity giants KKR and CD&R.

“The workers at US Foods care about this company and its customers,” said Local 722 President Steve Mongan. “They don’t want to strike, but like the rest of the 99 percent in America, they are tired of being disrespected and having their rights under federal labor law violated while the private equity firms in the top 1 percent destroy their livelihood.”

Private equity firms KKR and CD&R purchased US Foods (then U.S. Foodservice) in 2007. The private equity purchase saddled US Foods with approximately $5 billion in debt.

We prefer to think of KKR and CD&R as "fast buck artists." "War profiteers" works for us too. US Foods was actually charged with ripping off the U.S. Defense Department and Veterans' Administration. The company had contracts to supply American troops at military bases and overcharged U.S. taxpayers. Of course corporate wrongdoers never land in prison. They just agree to multi-million dollar settlements -- a pittance compared with the size of their plunder -- without admitting guilt. That's what happened with US Foods. The company agreed to a $30 million dollar settlement with the Department of Justice.

But we digress. The strike will probably spread. Our US Foods brothers in Fife, Wash., can't honor the picket line until Friday morning, but the picket "line" went up this morning. Here's a photo:

We close with a tweet from our brother @longhairedfool:

"I dont want USF to fail...but those greedy heartless bastards need to learn how to appreciate the workers they feed off"