Workers at East Wash Festival Foods vote to unionize

MADISON, Wis. (WMDX) – Workers at another Madison grocery store are unionizing. 

Staff at the Festival Foods on East Washington Avenue voted earlier this month to join a union. They’re now represented by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1473.

They join employees of at least eight other grocery stores in Dane County who have unionized. 

Steve Temple works in the deli department at that Festival store. He helped organize the union vote. 

“I can only speak for myself, but I do know that the most common [priorities] that come up are definitely pay, especially for part-time and front-end workers. Lowering the threshold for what counts as full-time, because a lot of people aren't getting any kind of benefits,” Temple said. “Having regular scheduling, and also guaranteed minimum hours. We have people that are some weeks they're getting four hours for the entire week, and then the next week, they get maybe 20-30. You can't really plan your life around that.”

Temple said in the election, 72% of employees voted to join the union. 

The national umbrella of the United Food and Commercial Workers represents almost 900,000 employees across the country. 

The next step is for the union to start negotiating with Festival.