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.

[LenS]

I'm going to have to agree 50sDad. I really like the automatic checkers. Living alone, I tend to buy twelve items or less at a time, so adding four express lanes for only one employee is quite beneficial to me.

Most of the time, they're much faster (especially in a Walmart type of store). And over time, I've noticed that people are increasingly familiar with using them, so the slowdowns with totally confused people using them have mostly vanished.

But I do agree that really bulky items can be difficult to get through. I guess the trick is to put some weight in the bag after each scan before putting it on the floor to make room for more. *g* Oh, and it helps to note produce PLU's for items without a tag/label before getting to the register.

[heleny]

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

I went to an Albertsons in San Diego, and their strikers had a sign encouraging people to shop at Ralphs.

[TheDon]

It's nice to know which grocery stores are union stores, so we can avoid shopping there.

[Bernard Marx]

These people are dumber than Rodney King.

Great line, LOL. Quit making sense and presenting the facts...the socialists will never get it anyhow! Life owes them a living, remember? They worship the Government Religion and expect to take money out of the collection plate, not put it in.

[Bernard Marx]

Automatic Checkers are wonderful 99% of the time.

And they'll get better year by year as the manufacturers learn from experience.

[ladtx]

...just $5 a week for individual employees and $15 a week for employees and their families."

That's dirt cheap compared to what I pay. How can they gripe about that?

[Amelia]

Do we need to send y'all some grits? ;-)

[rb22982]

I'm fairly content at my retail grocery store which is 37 for myself every 2 weeks or 87 for my family for health care and dental insurance. Why those morons would strike over 5 bucks a week is beyond me. They've lost far more than the cost for healthcare for the next several years.

[Amelia]

Which begs the question--if I can do it for myself quicker

That's a good question there...you're totally unskilled at checking out merchandise - why should someone who does it all day long be slower than you are?

[rb22982]

My upscale supermarket grocery store's gross profit before employees is around 43% for the store. After employees, building rent, elec, etc its around 18%-20%. We're pretty unique in the industry though. We pay off the cost to open a new store within about 9 months of being opened. We carefully pick where we open as well.

[rb22982]

LOL bingo!

[tortoise]

I haven't shopped regularly at a Safeway or Albertson's for quite some time now. I shop at Lunardi's (Walnut Creek). They have a full-service meat counter and deli which are far superior to the other supers. Their meat and fish is much better, as is their produce. The prices are lower than I find at Albertson's and Safeway.

I actually shop at Lunardi's all the time, but I find that they are more expensive than the local Safeway (which is quite nice) most of the time. Lunardi's does have a much better selection of high-end goods, which is important when I am putting on dinner parties and generally doing a lot of my gourmet cooking (which is only occasionally). For price and quality, it neatly splits the difference between fabulous but expensive grocery stores (like Draeger's) and run-of-the-mill neighborhood supermarkets like Safeway or Albertsons. Since there is two Lunardi's relatively close to me, I use it fairly regularly.

I will say that for meat and fish, Lunardi's is vastly better than the local supermarket.

[.38sw]

Their meat and produce are more expensive than Safeway, but I find that many other items are less. The things I buy regularly, like bread, milk, salad dressing, baking supplies, etc, are less expensive. I don't mind paying more for the meat and produce, because the quality is much better. I should have qualified my statement about Lunardi's being less expensive - it's probably a wash, all things considered.

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

Where those things really rock is in my Home Depot! Dang, no waiting, just blow right through and get on with life!

Funny, I just one of these at Home Depot this weekend and came to the opposite conclusion. Too fussy, have to hold each item at just the right angle and distance from the scanner to register, constant complaints about 'unrecognized items in baggage area', and you can't take anything out of the baggage area until completely done, which doesn't quite work when you have a few bulky items.

Where they really work is when you have smaller purchases and no large items or produce, zip in and zip out. Blasted things always complain about stuff in the bagging area when absolutely nothing is wrong.

[JonH]

The cost of a mediocre health plan in CA is probably no less than $500.00 per month. Asking the workers to pay $60.00 of the cost seems damned reasonable.

The stores will soon be replacing the strikers and working to de-certify the union. Then the real war starts.

[Lancey Howard]

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.

Absolutely. What becomes a problem is when one or more of those pieces of the compensation package takes on a "floating" characteristic. "Salary" or "per hour" wages are known and fixed (not counting macroeconomic effects on the dollar) but things like "health care insurance" can go up, up, up without the employee ever knowing (or caring) about it. But for the employer, the compensation package for each employee goes up accordingly.

It looks like the grocery stores are simply trying to gain some control over that kind of "hidden" increase in their costs, but I think the best way to handle this is for the stores to make the appropriate adjustment in wages rather than isolating health care insurance.

[onyx]

Do we need to send y'all some grits? ;-)

LOL! Thank you mam for the kind offer, but I think I can live off the fat of the land a little while longer, although Mc Donald's for Christmas supper doesn't sound all that appetizing.

[cmsgop]

Mine just went up to $400 a month.

[Prime Choice]

I don't get it. I had to pitch in for my health insurance back in the 1980s. And these unskilled workers think they're entitled to it as a freebie?

Who's behind this socialist claptrap? Oh yeah...the usual suspects.