[E. Pluribus Unum]

Supermarket workers are trying to cope with meager strike benefits and mounting bills.

That's what happens when you WALK OFF YOUR JOB!!!

[joltinjoe]

Oh, now I get the point of the article...Socialized health care is what we need...Like Canada and the UK.

[Hodar]

Wow, looks like the unions have a good chance to kill yet another industry.

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.

Funny, if Unions are so good; why is WalMart poised to drive the stores out of business?

[concerned about politics]

During the recession, businessess were not allowed to offer higher pay for better employees. In order to lure the best, they had to offer something to get the most qualified people to work for them.
Because they couldn't use money, they chose health care. It was a "gift" for those who were worth hiring.
It was meant to be an incentive only. Now, many things start out innocently, but get totally out of hand when the Socialists or "victimizers" move in on it. Today, everyone, no matter how well they perform, demands it for free.
This was once a gift, but has now become a business busting entitlement.
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.

[FairOpinion]

"asking their employees to "share in the cost of their health benefits" as most American workers do now."

===

Exactly. In most other industries and companies, which once used to offer very generous benefits, the benefits have been cut back and employess do have to pay part of their healthcare insurance. The sign of the times. What is so special about grocery store employees?

If they don't like the job and benefits, nobody stops them from getting another job.

I think the union bosses are at fault -- they just want to exercise power, at the expense of the employees, they are supposed to represent. The workers are losing a lot more by being out of work for 2 months, than the amount of benefit loss. In other words, if they would get everything they wanted now, it probably would take years for them to break even from the two months loss of salary.

I don't have the numbers, but suppose they were expected to chip in $20/mo for their benefits. Suppose their salary is $10/hr, that's $400/week, and $3600 for the two months (9 weeks) they have been out of work, so they lost $3600 right now. I think most workers would rather effectively had made $20 less a month. -- It will take years for them to recoup that loss, IF they would get everything they want, but they won't.

[Myrddin]

I was paying $60 per month for health insurance as a new hire to Pacific Telephone in 1980. My salary at that time was $19K/year. Today, I pay $416 per month for significantly less coverage than I had in 1980.

Perhaps Walmart can acquire some of the vacated properties as Vons and Ralphs exit the grocery business.

[Jaysun]

Unions are deplorable. I'd shut my company down before I let it go union. 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. Unions destroy jobs! For example, the Dole Pineapple plant in Hawaii is a tourist attraction and nothing else. You see, their unionized $19/hr pineapple pickers were simply too unproductive and too expensive for Dole to continue in Hawaii. They now grow pineapples in the Philippines. Congratulations to the union leader in Hawaii who got great pay for his members - albeit great pay for only a short time - now they make zilch. I wonder why that union leader doesn't start growing pineapples and dishing out $19/hr to his pals?

I wish that Bush would do like Reagan did when faced with the airline strikers of his day - tell them to get back to work or be replaced.

[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...

[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 >

[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.

[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.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

I pay $435 a month for my family health coverage.

These whining brats can stuff it.

[CdMGuy]

Let me see here. I am looking at my medical insurance costs for 2004, as it is open enrollment, and my employer just renewed for 2004. The employee cost of insurance is going to be $37 a week for an employee and spouse to be in an HMO plan and $80 a week to be in a PPO plan. For family coverage, those premiums are $50 for HMO and $103 for PPO. That's per week folks. So, if I want to ensure my spouse and children in a PPO plan, the annual cost to me is $5,356. By the way, my employer pays a good bit more of the premium cost than do most other manufacturing concerns in Southern California.

All employees in my company pay the same - the union employees, salaried employees and management. So, I should care because the supermarket workers are not willing to pay any of their health insurance costs?

These people are dumber than Rodney King. Talks broke off again over the weekend. At this rate, the strike will go into next year. When it finally is over, many of them will be let go because shoppers have found other alternatives. Can the strikers say Trader Joes, Costo, Walmart, Sam's Club, Stater Brothers, etc??????

Right now, walmart is making a big push into Southern California with their Walmart Superstores. For example, in the Palm Springs area, one just opened, and two more are about to start construction. Three Walmart Superstores in a valley with a population of around 300,000. I wonder just how many Ralphs, Vons, and Albertsons will be closing their doors in a couple of years.

Food prices in the union stores are outrageous. It can be cheaper just to eat out at family type restaurants. To top it all off, there is a over-abundance of super market stores in So Cal on a population basis. This over-capacity situation alone will result in many store closings in the years ahead. The impact on the other stores in any shopping center anchored by a supermarket will be staggering when the super closes.

[TheDon]

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

[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? ;-)

[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.