Posted on 12/17/2003 11:33:14 AM PST by CounterCounterCulture
By Sue Zeidler
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Union leaders on Tuesday called for pickets of Safeway stores across North America in support of 70,000 Southern California grocery workers who have been out of work for two months in a contract dispute with Safeway and two other leading chains.
Over the next few weeks, the United Food and Commercial Workers union said it would ask consumers not to shop at Safeway stores. Protests could also broaden to include acts of civil disobedience by supporting religious groups, a union spokesman said after a rally in Los Angeles.
Talks between the UFCW, which represents some 1.4 million workers, and Safeway Inc., Albertsons Inc. and Kroger Co. are set to resume on Friday under federal mediation.
Both sides remain far apart on the key issue of how much the grocery chains should pay for employee health insurance coverage under a new contract. The union has singled out Safeway for taking the toughest line in negotiations.
The labor dispute has been widely watched both as a sign of the wider debate on U.S. employee health care coverage and for its potential to cut operating costs for the grocery chains, something they say they need to compete with cut-rate operators like Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
"We are going to target Safeway operations in the U.S. and Canada -- we are going to ask workers, consumers and communities to 'shop-out' and shut down Safeway's profits," Doug Dority, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, said at a news conference.
"We want to empty the stores as well as the cash drawers. Safeway only understands money, so we will take action to cut them off from the source of their money -- workers, consumers and communities," he said.
Labor leaders from across the country gathered on Tuesday to discuss the strike as thousands of strikers and supporters staged a march through the streets of Century City and Beverly Hills.
THREAT DISMISSED
Brian Dowling, a spokesman for Safeway, dismissed the threatened union action.
"This is nothing new. They've been calling for a version of this for a long time," noting that the union had recently picketed in Washington, D.C. and northern California with minimal impact.
"It's an old tactic and it won't impact what's going on in Southern California. The irony is we're going to the bargaining table on Friday and they're calling for a boycott," he said.
TWO-MONTH OLD DISPUTE
The strike began on Oct. 11, when workers staged a walkout at Safeway's Vons and Pavilions stores. The next day, Albertsons and Ralphs, a unit of Kroger, which bargain jointly with Safeway, locked out their unionized employees.
Talks have hit an impasse even though the financial pain on both sides has mounted.
Kroger, for example, posted third-quarter earnings that were half of what Wall Street had expected after the labor dispute drove shoppers away from its stores.
Striking workers, meanwhile, have been collecting strike pay of only about $200 a week from the UFCW, which has not said how much the strike has cost.
"We will not allow the elimination of health care benefits. We will not allow workers to be starved into giving up health care for their families," Dority said on Tuesday.
Others who spoke at the press conference included John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO umbrella union body; Melissa Gilbert, president of the Screen Actors Guild; and John Connelly, president of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
Tuesday's gathering also served as a fundraiser, with various union leaders from around the country and Canada pledging money to help the striking workers.
"The UFCW International Union already has a financial package to fund the basic strike benefit well into the new year," said Dority, adding that "millions of dollars are being poured into Southern California to win this fight."
Look them all out! And don't rehire them. Let these leeches and shakedown artists go destroy some other business.
'30s.
A different news article on FR recently said the San Diego county union locals of UFCW were reducing the strike pay from $300/wk to only $100/wk, with $150 for strike captains. The strikers probably won't want to keep striking with such low pay.
If all 70,000 striking grocery employees were getting $200/wk for nine weeks, the product would be $126 million. There's the additional union loss of the potential union dues during those nine weeks.
I wonder if these strikers have health coverage during the strike period. It wouldn't make sense for Ralphs/Albertsons/Vons to pay for health coverage if the strikers aren't working, but I doubt the unions would pay, either.
Someone posted on another thread that he asked his Albertsons store that question, and the reply was that they could close for 30 days, and, upon reopening, they could hire the new people permanently. Apparently, they're actually considering doing that.
I used to shop Ralphs, but because the strikers aren't picketing Ralphs, the store gets too crowded on weekends.
I now go to Albertsons or Vons, where I can shop in peaceful, wide-open aisles. The shelves and produce are all neat, too, (except for the expired milk). I can also worry less about ill people coughing or sneezing everywhere inside the store.
I'm not sure that's true. Besides, how would that help them? The stores are free to hire replacement workers (they would have to give the strikers their jobs back after the strike, however) and run their stores as they normally would. Even if they shut down for 30 days, the situation remains the same--the picketers are out front and the Teamsters et.al. are still sympathy striking.
OK. Now where do you intend to work after you "empty the cash drawers"? Safeway understands money enough to know that they won't be in business very long if they operate at a loss.
Bring in the WalMart!
There is sure a lot of union bashing on this thread. I wonder if all if you will take the same stance when the Sheriff's, local police, firefighters, and prison guards conduct a work action.
Not here in San Diego. The shelves are well-organized. Maybe they'll be missing one of the ten available varieties of each thing, but that's hardly "empty." Vons had some good sale prices on a few items, and they actually didn't run out of the sale items, unlike in the past when the sale items would always run out before the weekend.
bakeries, pharmacies, deli's are all closed (which is the main reason to go to a store like Alebertson's anyhow).
I think some just have reduced hours, but they're not all closed; I saw that the pharmacies are open reduced hours. I don't use those services, but the stores are probably losing a lot of their profits from those high-margin services. Meat counters were closed when I went to Ralphs a few weeks ago.
The ones that wield the most influence in this state are the public employees unions: police, sheriffs, firefighters, teachers, clerks, and prison guards. Paticularly the prison guards.
Grocery store employees don't wield very much power here in Cali.
No, it's not.
I don't know, either, since there weren't many details. The idea was to bust the union, so that their strikers wouldn't keep striking if they all lost their jobs. Maybe the stores would close permanently, and new stores (under the same owner) would use the old locations.
The Teamsters don't like this strike at all. Apparently, they're not getting strike pay, and some still remember that the grocery store union didn't support the Teamsters when they were on strike.
My neighbor is one of the striking teamster's that recounted this little bit for me.
I remember when the unions drove Safeway clear out of Texas, about 12 years ago. Safeway stores became Apple Tree, which was later bought out by Randall's, which had higher prices and fewer stores than Safeway.
I usually shop at both Safeway and Albertsons here in No. California, but I will be doing all of my shopping at Safeway, until this blows over. Besides, Safeway has home delivery, no delivery fee on orders over $150, the same prices as in the store, and really fresh meats and produce.
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