President Louis Mark Carotenuto has been a life-long UNION member of 46 years who started working at Hercules, Inc. located in central NJ; this facility was a UNION SHOP represented by the ICWUC, which is a Chemical Division of the (UFCW) United Food & Commercial Workers, International Union.
It was early on when Brother Carotenuto got involved with his Union from the start by regularly attending Union meetings and then serving for many years as a Shop Steward; from there he began also serving on Safety, Production, Operational & Work Redesign Committees.
In 1990 Brother Carotenuto was elected to his ICWUC Local Union’s Executive Board where over the years he served in virtually every spot of the Executive Board, handling grievances, bargaining contracts, dealing with Local Union finances and Chairing Work Redesign Committees in order to better each Union workers job and wage structure so it was more in-line with the company’s profitable and industry standards. Ultimately, he became the Local Union President in 1996, holding that position until 2008 when he left to begin working for the UFCW International as an ICWUC/UFCW Union Representative. As a Union Representative he worked covering shops with approximately 1,500 members in various industries throughout the Northeast Region while taking various courses & programs through the National Labor College (NLC), formerly the George Meany School of Labor, to broaden his experience & knowledge in Labor Education, Organizing, Union Leadership and Administration.
In November of 2011 the UFCW International took over one of its UFCW Brooklyn based Local Unions, and a short time later (then) UFCW International Representative Carotenuto was assigned to the Brooklyn Local to assist in beginning the process to bargain real and improved UNION contracts as the Director of Collective Bargaining. Shortly thereafter he was appointed as Assistant Trustee and then Trustee of the Local where he was assigned to redefine and rebuild the Local at every level.
In April of 2013 after being elected President of the newly re-chartered UFCW Local 2013, President Carotenuto continued the process of completely rebuilding the local while searching for and hiring good, Labor minded experienced Union Staff to continue the ongoing work of striving to constantly improve the terms & conditions of employment (and, in turn, the lives of the thousands of Local 2013 members) by bargaining improved contracts with improved wages & benefits.
President Carotenuto firmly believes that “the strength of any Union is in the Solidarity of the membership; if there is no Unity & Solidarity, then there is no Union – and it’s the lack of Unity & Solidarity that hampers any Unions ability to make improvements. It all starts with the members standing United!”.
As President, he is constantly pushing the Local 2013 Staff to grow and improve their skill sets while servicing the members and working to build the environment of respect & dignity in the workplace that they deserve; this is work that continues to this day on behalf of the thousands of Local 2013 members.
“We fight for those who can’t fight for themselves, and for our members who need an advocate in order to ensure that they have a voice in their workplace and a seat at the bargaining table – while this work may not be easy, it will never stop”!
President Carotenuto believes that; “turning any Local into a STRONG UNION takes time and commitment – it does NOT happen overnight but, I believe we can achieve the best outcomes for our members through them being involved and us in the Local being committed to them – that is where you will see our greatest growth in positive change”.