Union leader`s lavish pay, perks draw fire

Union leader’s lavish pay, perks draw fire
By Jessica Guynn
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
He earned more than $500,000 in 2003.
He has two pilots on staff to chauffeur him in a private jet.
He drives a luxury car and enjoys a $28,000-a-year country club membership.
His 1,100-square-foot office is the size of a small house.
But Jack Loveall is not a corporate executive. The 68-year-old president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union 588 in Roseville is just paid like one.
A self-described champion of the working class, Loveall is one of the highest-paid union leaders in the
nation, representing some 23,000 grocery and food industry workers from Modesto to the Oregon border
whose dues subsidize his salary and perks.
Thanks to a $100,000 raise last year, Loveall gets paid more in one month than many of these workers
make in a year. In fact, Loveall and six family members made a collective $1.1 million in 2003, accounting
for about a quarter of the union’s payroll, according to the most recent financial statement UFCW 588
filed with the U.S. Department of Labor.
Loveall did not return repeated calls for this story. Representatives of UFCW 588 would only speak to the
Times on the condition of anonymity.
They argue that Loveall, who got his start more than a half century ago as a teenage produce clerk in
Detroit, is worth his wages for making Northern California grocery workers the best-paid in the nation.
During the past two decades, in a period of waning union influence and membership, this maverick’s
shrewd business sense and sharp instincts helped build a vibrant and modern union that spans 33 counties,
counts millions of dollars in assets and exercises force at the bargaining table, they say.
From most accounts, Loveall is the most powerful union official representing grocery workers in California. How he used that influence over the years has been a source of controversy within the labor movement.
His toughest critics cast Loveall as a throwback to the union excesses of another era. They say Loveall has
prospered by running the union as his own personal fiefdom, padding the payroll with family members and
cronies and muzzling opposition from union dissidents.
In the process, they say, he has struck the best deals, not for grocery workers, but for himself.
High-stakes negotiation
That criticism has reemerged as Loveall takes the lead in high-stakes negotiations with supermarket chains
this summer. Loveall, who represents 17,000 grocery workers in Northern California whose contract
expires in mid-July, is in active negotiations with the chains, which are determined to slash labor costs to
better compete with Wal-Mart and other nonunion stores.
.
The deal Loveall negotiates for his members is likely to become the blueprint for some 30,000 other grocery workers
in the Bay Area and its environs, whose contract expires Sept. 11. Loveall and the other union leaders expect their
toughest battle yet on the heels of the punishing 139-day supermarket strike that stretched from San Luis Obispo to
San Diego.
In Southern California, union leaders underestimated the depth of cuts that the chains would demand. In the coming
weeks, Loveall undoubtedly faces a similar challenge. He must pressure recalcitrant supermarket management into a
good contract and stave off efforts to reduce medical coverage and establish lower pay and benefits for new hires.
As other Northern California union leaders brace for the fight to preserve their members’ livelihood, some privately
fear that Loveall’s rich compensation and privileged lifestyle could undermine public sympathy for grocery workers.
The average full-time grocery job for a large Bay Area supermarket chain pays $15.30 an hour or $31,824 a year,
according to the Bay Area Economic Forum. In 2003, Loveall earned a base salary of $486,734, more than 15 times
that. In addition to his gross salary, Loveall pulled down $20,000 as a senior vice president with the UFCW international union and received $60,036 in disbursements for official business.
The UFCW 588 executive board establishes the compensation of all union officers, according to union bylaws filed
with the Department of Labor.
At least five of Loveall’s family members, including his daughter, two sons and son-in-law, sat on that board in 2003,
according to documents filed with the Labor Department. Eleven of the 21 board members, including Loveall, were
paid union staffers.
Unusually high compensation is often a red flag that a union is not democratically run, union watchdogs say. If a
union leader’s performance merits top pay, his or her members should have the opportunity to vote on it, watchdogs
say.
“The fact that the salaries are so high suggests a union where the leadership is unaccountable to members,” said Carl
Biers, executive director of the Brooklyn-based Association for Union Democracy.
Loveall’s supporters say Loveall, whose motto is “strength through solidarity,” couldn’t be more accountable to his
members or work more tirelessly on their behalf. They point to the union’s robust finances and track record in
negotiating labor contracts.
In 2003, UFCW 588 had net assets of $4.4 million, according to a financial statement the union recently filed with
the Labor Department. A union official estimates that the true market value of the union’s assets, including that of its
headquarters, which cost approximately $4 million to build in the late 1980s, is, in fact, much higher.
The union negotiates, administers and enforces more than 200 separate collective bargaining agreements, oversees
approximately $3.3 billion in pension assets and ensures that more than $300 million in health care benefits is paid
each year to UFCW members in Northern California, a UFCW 588 official said.
“Jack has always been a step ahead in terms of the administration of that local,” said an official with the UFCW
international. “He runs a very efficient local union.”
Loveall supporters give much of that credit to Loveall and his family members. They say the union runs not as a
nepotistic hierarchy but as the purest sort of meritocracy. “What is the criticism? Is it that we don’t get the job
done?” a UFCW 588 official asked. “I guess if we were failing as a union, I could accept the criticisms a little more
easily. We’re not.”
Furthermore, union members simply don’t care how much Loveall makes, contends a close Loveall associate. They
only care how much they themselves make. “The question is: Is Jack doing a good job for his members?” the associate said. “The bottom line is that no one questions his ability or his commitment to his membership.”
Popularity with members
A UFCW official said Loveall’s popularity speaks to that commitment. Indeed, some UFCW 588 members interviewed by the Times said they are both pleased with the contracts Loveall has negotiated on their behalf and untroubled by his pay and perks. Kelly McCoy, a retired clerk, says he in particular appreciates his union’s health
coverage, which helped him afford heart bypass surgery and other expensive medical procedures. Martha Steinwandt,
also a retired clerk, said she too is grateful to the Lovealls for medical benefits that helped her afford treatment for
her son’s illnesses.
“They make exorbitant amounts of money. But what are you going to do? There is nothing you can do about it. They
set their own wages,” Steinwandt said. “They’ve been really good to me.”
But a smattering of UFCW 588 members view Loveall’s compensation differently. From their vantage point on the
grocery store floor, they describe a leader who isolates himself from the rank-and-file and who is unresponsive to
their needs.
They say they have never met Loveall nor been inside his well-appointed office. Union representatives rarely visit the
stores, they contend. Some workers allege they have not been properly represented in grievance procedures even
though the union touts its representation of grocery workers and training of shop stewards.
Union membership meetings held 24 miles from 588’s headquarters in an industrial section of Sacramento are
sparsely attended, workers say. One grocery clerk interviewed at random by the Times said he didn’t think clerks
were allowed to attend the meetings. In fact, he didn’t know any clerk who had.
“You don’t even know what’s going on half the time,” the clerk said. “The only time you see the union people is when
something is getting ready to have a major effect on the union. They don’t come through to find out the concerns in
the store. It seems like the union (leaders are) just looking out for themselves.”
Loveall vigorously defended his income in an interview with the Sacramento Bee in 1992, when he was making
$235,486. “Just because we run a union doesn’t mean we are supposed to be paupers,” he said. “We represent
people and get them good contracts. I get paid good wages. My staff gets paid good wages. My members don’t want
me driving around in a stagecoach or working in some (expletive)house office.”
His elegant offices force deep-pocketed supermarket chains to take UFCW 588 seriously, Loveall said in the interview. “Employers walk into this office and they see we have a first-class operation. And they say, ‘Uh oh, we’re not
screwing around with some Mickey Mouse operation.’”
Loveall told the Bee that his union-paid country club membership is for talking business and that the plane — he’s
now on his third — helps him get around the union’s vast territory.
“We have had an aircraft since the late 1980s,” said one UFCW 588 official, “and I can tell you we’ve also had fax
machines since the late 1980s.”
Union roots
To some, that assertion — airplanes are as necessary to smoothly running a union as fax machines — seems incongruous for a union representing food workers whose leader was born into the labor movement.
Loveall’s father took part in the first organizing efforts of the United Mine Workers and later became a member of
the United Auto Workers. His mother helped organize the A-C Spark Plug plant in Flint, Mich.
Loveall climbed from grocery clerk to the top of the UFCW through hard work, ingenuity and an unrelenting drive to
improve the lives of working people, say colleagues. Driving that ascent, they say, was a consuming mission to
transform retail jobs into a path to middle-class security — that, and fierce personal ambition.
After stints as a business agent, then as an organizer, Loveall ran a large union in Montreal and eventually joined the
staff of the international union, overseeing large regional swaths, including 11 years as the western regional director.
Two decades ago, after suffering a massive heart attack, Loveall abandoned his aspiration to become president of the
UFCW international union in Washington, D.C. A family member said Loveall left the high-pressure job with the
international union for his health and to spend more time with his wife and seven children.
Sources familiar with the situation contend that Loveall was passed over. Instead, Douglas Dority was named organizing director for the international union, a stepping-stone to the presidency from which he retired this year.
In December 1984, Loveall took over UFCW 588, a fledgling Sacramento union with fewer than 5,000 members.
The circumstances are disputed, but Loveall persuaded then-union president Wynn Plank, who was near retirement
age, to step down and was appointed president of the local in a special meeting of the executive board.
“He definitely saw potential (in Sacramento),” a family member said. “He loved Northern California. He had been all
over the country. He clearly selected this as where he wanted to call home.”
Loveall set out to create the state’s largest UFCW local by aggressively organizing independent nonunion grocers
and merging with neighboring unions. Loveall even officially changed the name of his local to UFCW 588 Northern
California.
His expansionist philosophy reflected a growing trend in the UFCW. As membership slipped, grocery-worker unions
had begun to merge to increase their ranks and therefore their clout with supermarket chains, which had mushroomed
from smaller regional players into major national corporations.
announcing that union members would meet to discuss and vote on a merger with UFCW 588 eight days later.
Ross-Smith organized a group called the Committee for Accountable Leadership to stall the vote so that the union
members could get more information. Barbara Carpenter, now president of UFCW 1179, which represents approximately 5,000 grocery workers in Contra Costa County, was one of the rank-and-file members who joined that group.
Nearly 400 members turned out over concerns that Loveall was after the union’s mortgage-free building and $1.5
million strike fund.
Their bitter opposition ultimately foiled the merger, but did not slow the spread of anonymous fliers attacking
Loveall. Loveall suspected Ross-Smith and other UFCW 1179 members and launched an investigation. His union’s
lawyer, Steve Stemerman, showed up unannounced at members’ homes, seeking information. UFCW 588 dispatched
staffers to follow Ross-Smith and others.
Flurry of mergers
A UFCW 588 official said several Northern California unions initiated merger discussions. The first union merger in
1989 with UFCW 916 made UFCW 588 the largest grocery and food worker union in Northern California and the
third largest in California with 15,000 members.
But Loveall’s merger spree in the late 1980s and early 1990s sparked protest from dissident members who argued
that Loveall would use their unions’ assets and membership dues to support his lavish lifestyle while union workers
would get less say in electing officers and in contract negotiations.
Loveall, who masterfully executed the union mergers, was unstoppable. Critics say he offered union executives cushy
jobs and salaries. For example, one of the first unions Loveall took over was UFCW Local 498, a meat-cutter local in
Sacramento with 1,600 members and net assets of $2.3 million. Thomas Lawson, the union’s president who was
making $12,557 in 1991, landed a job as a vice president with UFCW 588, making $85,151. Obie Brandon, the
union’s treasurer, saw his pay jump from $10,744 to $75,945. In 2003, as a vice president with UFCW 588, Brandon
made $138,405. His son, Eric Brandon, a business representative on the 588 payroll, made $67,857. His brother-inlaw Raymond Kristoff is also a business representative and made $79,989.
Alleged intimidation
Ross-Smith says that UFCW 588 staffers staked out his home and tailed him in union cars. In June 1994, Ross-Smith
was rear-ended in Walnut Creek by three UFCW 588 business agents following him too closely in a white 1993 Ford
Thunderbird leased to the union, according to a traffic collision report from the Walnut Creek police department.
Preston “Tom” Epperson, a 588 member in the car, confirms that he and the driver, Tom Pate, were following RossSmith but says Pate hit Ross-Smith’s car inadvertently. Pate refused to comment.
A Loveall associate does not deny the practice. He defends it. “Any local would have done the same thing,” he said.
“You would follow people to get evidence to support the charges.”
But critics allege that Loveall also has tried to intimidate political opponents. Jack Nordby, a Raley’s clerk, attempted
to run against Loveall in 1997 in what would have been Loveall’s only contested election since Loveall took over
UFCW 588.
Nordby, who now lives in Santa Rosa, where he runs Faith and Joy, a Christian bookstore, says he wanted to take on
Loveall to give members a voice in how their union is run. If he had succeeded in toppling Loveall, Nordby said he
would have slashed the salaries of union officers and business representatives and opened up labor negotiations to the
membership.
But, Nordby charges, UFCW 588 pulled out all the stops to keep him from running. After he started campaigning in
mid-July 1997, Nordby says union staffers followed him and his family, scaring his wife and daughters on the way to
church one Sunday morning. When he went into grocery stores to collect enough signatures to get on the ballot,
Nordby says union representatives harassed him. Those union representatives then badgered grocery workers who
signed his petition into removing their signatures, Nordby alleges. The union reps claim Nordby misrepresented himself
to grocery workers who readily agreed to remove their signatures when they learned who he really was, a Loveall
associate said.
So many union members removed their signatures that Nordby did not have enough support to run.
“I think the union got scared. They didn’t want to take any chance even though there was no way the guy was going to
win,” said a Raley’s meatcutter who removed his name from the petition. “They said, ‘You guys don’t want this. You’d
be jeopardizing the contract you have now.’”
A Loveall associate defended the union staffers, but said they acted on their own initiative and time. “These are people
who fight hard for their members and fight hard to keep their jobs,” he said.
A U.S. Department of Labor investigation found no probable cause that violations occurred that would have changed
the outcome of the election on July 25, 1997.
Lorna Greenlee, a retired UFCW 588 clerk whom Nordby urged to run for president at the same time, says she too was
accosted when she was collecting signatures. Two union staffers yelled at her inside a grocery store and then berated
her for two hours outside, demanding to see who had signed her petition. Her then 19-year-old daughter, who had an
infant son, begged her widowed mother to abandon her efforts to get on the union ballot when they say they spotted
union representatives watching their house from a parked car down the street.
“It was ridiculous,” Greenlee’s daughter said. “I told her, ‘This is not worth it. This is serious.’”
“In two days I had almost enough signatures to run against Jack Loveall. Then I got scared,” Greenlee said.
Greenlee said she eventually signed papers that stated she would drop out of the race. “I just wanted to see a real
election,” Greenlee said. “We have debates for president, debates for governor. Retail clerks should have a voice.”
The union’s future
UFCW 588’s next election is in December 2006. Sources say Jack Loveall may install his 42-year-old son, Jacques,
as president by stepping down before the end of his term. Such a maneuver would bypass a membership vote. As the
newly appointed secretary-treasurer of UFCW 588, Jacques Loveall automatically would fill the vacancy until the
executive board selects a president to serve for the remaining balance of the term, according to the union bylaws.
Jack Loveall, who is already described by some as semi-retired, has handed off some of his management responsibilities to Jacques, who in recent years has assumed a more visible role in the union.
A dominant figure for three decades in the California labor movement, Jack Loveall will leave his son big shoes to
fill. His critics are suspicious, however, about what the lifelong unionist will leave with in his pockets. Loveall could
walk away with a large lump-sum severance payment in addition to a healthy pension. Those kinds of agreements are
not disclosed in financial statements unions must file with the federal government.
When he does retire, Loveall’s legacy is likely to be twofold. His allies say Loveall will be remembered as an effective
and indefatigable advocate who delivered for his members. They acknowledge he also will be remembered for how
well he compensated himself for it.
“He’s at the top of the heap in terms of leadership in Northern California,” said one UFCW official. “Whether he
always used it in the right way, that’s an open question.”
Reach Jessica Guynn at 925-952-2671 or [email protected].