Supermarkets 'offer' to end affordable health care

SF Gate ^ | 12/8/03 | Richard Brown and Richard Kronick

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

The strike by 70,000 grocery store workers, now joined by 8,000 truck drivers, has been taking its toll in Southern California. Shoppers are inconvenienced by half-empty shelves and closed stores. Supermarket workers are trying to cope with meager strike benefits and mounting bills.

[stylin_geek]

Sorry about that, in looking at what I wrote, I was less than clear. If one works for a Union grocery store, one has to only work 20 hours a week to qualify for benefits. This is what I was referring too. Unfortunately, my original post looked like I was referring to employers in general.

[Lizavetta]

They should be happy to have a job

They should be down on their knees thanking the grocery store for paying them far more than their low skill jobs deserve. I'm sorry, but stocking shelves, bagging groceries, and sliding things over a barcode reader are NOT HIGH SKILL JOBS!

[Wright is right!]

"In my opinion, if I ran a business, I'd drop all the freebies. If the "workers" don't like it , let them work somewhere else."

Absent from any debate or discussion about "employee benefits" is the fact that employees ALWAYS pay for 100% of their bennies. Employees also pay 100% of their Social Security tax, and any other "benefits" that may be in their agreement. Anyone who has ever done a personnel budget knows this.

The amount an individual actually earns is the total amount of that person's "line" in the personnel budget. That's the amount it costs the employer to have that person show up and contribute to the business. You may think you're making $50,000 a year, but in reality you're making closer to $64,000. Because that's how much it costs ME, your boss, to have you on the payroll. If you quit and I do your job myself, I SAVE $64,000 a year...not counting the time I devote to your old job and assuming I can continue to do mine in an interlaced fashion.

Don't believe me? Go to your boss and ask to see your line in the personnel budget. That's how much it costs the company to employ you - ergo, that's how much you're making.

Michael

[ridesthemiles]

In my opinion, if I ran a business, I'd drop all the freebies. If the "workers" don't like it , let them work somewhere else. I wouldn't allow anyone to control my life for me. Screw them. They should be happy to have a job.

GOOD FOR YOU.!!! If these barely-able-to-get-out-of-bed-everyday "employees are so damn good at what they do, then they can start their own company and see life from the other side of the checkbook.

Like my brother says to the whiners at his company- 60+ employees- WHICH SIDE OF YOUR PAYROLL CHECK DO YOU SIGN EVERY PAYDAY??????
He also reports that each new year's crop of college "graduates" is worse than the year before. Less educated and more demanding. He refers to them as "educated idiots".

[Sloth]

The right answer is to make health care affordable for workers in all workplaces by requiring reasonable contributions toward health insurance from all employers and their employees massive tort reform, deep tax cuts and deregulation.

[Wheee The People]

E. Richard Brown is director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and a professor in the UCLA School of Public Health. Richard Kronick is a professor in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, UC-San Diego.

'nuff said...

[concerned about politics]

These union people sure know how to win friends over (sarcasm)

Things that start out as a good thing often get out of control when the Socialists move in.
Environmentalism used to be a good thing. People shouldn't throw their garbage out the car window. Other people have to live here, too. Well, the Socialists sure screwed that one up! Now, people can't even use their private property - that is if it hasn't been stolen all together!
PETA started out as a good thing. There's no reason animals should suffer. Kill them quick. That's not too much to ask. Well, the Socialists sure screwed that one up! Now, they're demanding to control your diet for you, and because animals are now more human than humans, meat eating is canabalism!
Abortion started to save one womans life. Well, the Socialists sure screwed that one up! Today, killing babies is their hobby, and baby parts are a huge money making business. Millions have been slaughtered!
Social Security started out as a good thing. We were in a depression, and it allowed the older people to leave the job market so people with families could work. It was suppose to be temperary. Well, the Socialists sure screwed that one up! Now, everyone lives off it. It's the new welfare replacement entitlement!

The list of "Kindness" goes on and on, and it's become "victimization" instead.
We should just turn off the entire world government for about 10 years. The world would be a better place for it. "Every man will sit under his own vine, and no man will be able to take it from him."

[Timesink]

Benefits are a 'gift' that companies use to entice their employees to work for them, versus a competitor. They are not an entitlement. When unions 'demand' the entitlements, the company is forced to make a decision. Agree to the union demands, or take their company elsewhere.

The decision is usually quite easy to make. All the Kroger stores in my state are currently closed due to a strike over similar issues to the one described above. A couple weeks ago one of the local papers ran a huge page-one-above-the-fold article showing that the cost of the strike to Kroger was practically ZERO. Once you got past the relatively small initial loss from perishable goods that couldn't be sold (and most of that ended up being a tax writeoff because it was given away to charity), the amount of money Kroger saves from not paying its employees and from not having to pay taxes on unrealized sales is only a tiny bit more than the amount of profit they would have made had the stores stayed open. (Roughly speaking, the company's lost about a little over $1 million in profits during the two months the stores have been closed. The company's overall yearly income? $1.2 BILLION.)

The profit margin in the supermarket industry is very small, only 1 to 2 percent. With those sorts of numbers, the company has very little to lose by playing hardball.

[ridesthemiles]

Don't believe me? Go to your boss and ask to see your line in the personnel budget. That's how much it costs the company to employ you - ergo, that's how much you're making.

Michael- That is how much the BUDGET shows for the cost of having that employee----BUTTTTT- the employee only makes what gross he shows on his income tax return, and he only spends the net paycheck.
The difference is referred to as part of the "overhead" of running a business.
To use your method, then the "employee" should also be charged for the space in the parking lot for his car, the desk, chair, pens, pencils, paper, phone line, and rent space for his desk, the heat, power, etc etc etc.

[AgThorn]

We are sympathetic to the grocers' concerns about their ability to compete with nonunion competitors such as Wal-Mart. However, making health care unaffordable for workers at unionized grocers is the wrong answer to the problem. The right answer is to make health care affordable for workers in all workplaces by requiring reasonable contributions toward health insurance from all employers and their employees.

Oh, I get it ... the solution is not within the employer's grasp. The solution is in Washington. Now THIS is a well thought out piece. So, why isn't this author suggesting that the strikers go picket in front of Walmart instead?

Also, what is really wierd about this whole strike thing, and what this writer misses, is that the strikers are basically encouraging people to go to all the "non-union" stores to shop while they strike in front of the same stores that have been unionized. Weird logic

Requiring contributions toward the cost of health insurance is not just "pie in the sky," but now part of California law. SB2, California's Health Insurance Act of 2003, will protect what supermarket and other workers already have as well as cover a million uninsured working Californians. Starting in 2006, SB2 requires that employers with 200 or more employees contribute toward the costs of health insurance for workers and their dependents. By largely taking health benefits off the bargaining table, SB2 will create a more level playing field among employers, and a healthier workforce for California.

So, all Walmart grocery workers will have health care in 2006 as well? i.e. it will cost you more to shop at Walmart in California than anywhere else in the country. BUT, not to worry, we still have more illegal immigrants than any other state so it should all come out in the wash!! < /sarcasm >

[ridesthemiles]

I believe that you mean world war two, not the recession.
Didn't Nixon put a wage freeze into effect when he was in office? I seem to remember that when I worked at Universal Studios.

[BlessedByLiberty]

Our business is the same - do you not think at the end of the year - or with the W2's employers should give each employee a comprehensive list of what all of these benefits cost? This statement of employee costs should include, Social Security, Worker's Comp (the CA killer) and health benefits.

I want to see those same type of statement for taxpayers from each public agency. What of all those nice union benefits for government workers?

[Sloth]

Is your brother hiring? :-)

[Joe Hadenuf]

Why shouldn't they hold out. They see our leader making you pay for the seniors medicines. If the so-called conservative pres can give away to senoirs why can't they get their share? Pathetic!

LOL!

[ridesthemiles]

massive tort reform, deep tax cuts and deregulation.

EGGGSSSZACTLY!!!!!! Why shuld a person who has good health and no children pay for persons who don't take any decent care of themselves and have a passle of kids?
If that passes, the next thing will be: TOO MANY KIDS ARE STARVING....we all have to pay to feed kids we didn't have.

[concerned about politics]

Why should a person work, risk, and invest in his/her own enterprise and then allow it to be "hijacked" by a union leader that dictates what you must pay to whom and what those that you pay will or will not do? When that happens, it's no longer your company - it's the union leader's company

Look up the words "Socialism" and "Communism" in the Websters home and office dictionary.
"Socialism" is when the workers share in the ownership and decisions of the company.
"Communism" has as it's prelude " Socialism." It's the step leading to Communism.
Unions are members of the Socialist Workers Party. They're Communist thugs.
I'd never buy union by choice. In clean conscience, I cannot support this.

[finnman69]

No wonder storesa are moving to self check out lines. At $15 a week, a family is getting health coverage for $780 a year for bagging groceries.

That's $2.14 a day.

[50sDad]

Interviewer: "If we hire you, you get two weeks vacation after a year."

Worker: "Why, the last place I worked was a Union shop, and you got three weeks right away!"

Interviewer: "Well, we also pay 60% of your medical insurance."

Worker: "At the last place I worked, they paid all of it! Life and dental, too!"

Interviewer: "You get six yearly holidays with pay!"

Worker: "Why, at the last place I worked, you got ten holdays, and they catered lunch every day."

Interviewer: "If you don't mind me asking, if this last place was so good, why did you leave?"

Worker: "Oh, they went out of business."

[Ron in Acreage]

Notice to all future applicants: If you don't like the pay or benefits, DON'T FILL ONE OUT. I love when people bitch about their jobs. If you don't like it, QUIT. And let someone else take your so called crappy job. You will now be free to show your former employer how to run a business and give away all those "free" benefits you and your newly hired emloyees so richly "deserve". A job is not a right, you bunch of ungrateful whiners.