On June 30, Navy Federal Credit Union is planning to replace their current union cleaning contractor with a non-union company at their Vienna, VA headquarters. The impact of their decision could not be more profound for the 61 office cleaners who will either lose their jobs altogether or be forced to reapply for their own position, but with no guarantee of the benefits, employer-paid health care, raises, and protections they were provided under a union contract.
Let’s be clear - this attack on union jobs can’t be separated from the larger attack on democratic institutions we are seeing across the country today. The erosion of voting rights, the attacks on freedom of speech and the press, and the stacking of the deck in favor of the richest corporations over working people, are part and parcel of a larger shift in our country away from our founding principles.
One union worker set to lose her livelihood as a result of Navy Federal Credit Union’s actions is Gimena Torrico, a Woodbridge resident and a mother of three. She is battling type 2 diabetes and lives in fear of running out of her insulin - a fear that will be made reality if she loses her job and her healthcare coverage. Not only does this cause debilitating headaches, shaking, exhaustion and fainting spells, but it’s what recently killed her own cousin.
Without a job, Torrico would struggle to keep a roof over her family’s heads, she would have to cut back on food and would no longer be able to afford to keep her son in afterschool activities and soccer.
NFCU’s actions stand in stark contrast to the values of the military veterans who are their clients. As veterans, we know that democracy functions best when there’s pathways to good-paying jobs and when our businesses choose to put the livelihoods of their employees over padding their profits.
NFCU’s hiring of a non-union contractor does a real disservice to its membership, our country’s multiracial military community, by threatening to exacerbate racial wealth disparities in this country. Union households have median wages three times that of their non-union counterparts for Black families and five times for Hispanic families. Unions are one of the most reliable ways to help close racial wealth gaps by increasing wealth for households whose wage earners are protected by a union contract.
If NFCU strives to help their members achieve financial success, why not include the men and women who do back-breaking work to provide NFCU a safe and clean environment? Instead, the credit union with over $190 billion in assets is jeopardizing the livelihoods of over 60 janitors and their families. We strongly urge the NFCU to rethink their understanding of the principles and values that their own members and other members of the military served to protect, an equal opportunity at life, liberty, and happiness for all regardless of race. It’s not too late for them to simply keep their current responsible union contractor.
Across the country, credit unions have been a community-based alternative to the multinational banks that many rightly fear put profits before people.
But if credit unions like NFCU won’t live their values, the Virginia General Assembly will step into the gap, Repeatedly, Democratic majorities in the General Assembly considered legislation that would strengthen protections for working families in our Commonwealth - with the House of Delegates passing paid sick leave, guaranteed overtime pay for domestic service workers, requiring public utilities to pay their employees the prevailing wage, and passing collective bargaining for public employees.