UFCW President Steps Down, Successor Appointed

[Omaha Steve]

UFCW’s board is picking a new union president, but most members haven’t heard about it. Here, UFCW members picketed a Stater Bros. in Costa Mesa, California, on March 5. They were protesting layoffs of 63 courtesy clerks in four stores. Photo: UFCW Local 324

https://labornotes.org/2025/05/ufcw-president-steps-down-successor-appointed

May 14, 2025 / Lisa Xu

United Food and Commercial Workers President Marc Perrone announced his retirement May 13. The same day, the union announced his successor, chosen in a special meeting of the international executive board: Milton Jones, previously international secretary-treasurer.

Jones has been a UFCW member for 45 years, starting as a teenaged courtesy clerk at a Kroger grocery store in Alabama. He is the union’s first African American president. The executive board narrowly elected him over Mark Lauritsen, head of the meatpacking and food processing division.

UFCW has 1.3 million members in the U.S. and Canada, mainly in grocery and meatpacking. International presidents are supposed to be elected by delegates to the union’s conventions, which occur every five years.

But this makes four presidents in a row who were first chosen by its international executive board between conventions, following their predecessors’ retirements. Perrone, for instance, was appointed by the board in 2014, then formally elected at the 2018 convention, where he ran unopposed.

FULL story at link above.

[niyad]

1. Thank you. UFCW and kroger are in contract negotiations right now.

Well, except that kroger is not actually negotiating.