Posted on 12/05/2003 2:46:32 PM PST by South40
LA MESA – A picketer in front of a Vons store in La Mesa was arrested for allegedly hitting a teenage girl with a sign during a rally, police said today.
Several customers, including a wheelchair-bound elderly woman who called from inside the store at 8011 University Ave., complained that picketers were trying to keep them from leaving, said La Mesa police Lt. Bobby Barrett.
The elderly woman described the scene as a "riot," Barrett said.
Officers arriving at the store shortly after 5 p.m. yesterday saw picketers and customers involved in heated arguments and attempted to maintain peace between them, Barrett said.
And during the melee an officer was approached by a 13-year-old girl, who said she was hit twice on the head with a picket sign, Barrett said. Beverly Anne Longdon, 52, of El Cajon, was arrested after the officer consulted with the girl's parent, he said.
A union leader at the store said the gathering, estimated at 250 people, was a labor rally, Barrett said. The union leader helped police move the picketers away from the entry, he said.
Longdon was charged with battery and given a citation to appear in El Cajon Superior Court Jan. 27, Barrett said.
The work stoppage began on Oct. 11 when 21,000 Vons workers went on strike. In response, Ralphs Grocery Co. and Albertsons Inc. locked out 49,000 other workers.
The strike and lockout have affected 859 grocery stores from the Mexican Border to Bishop.
Rising health care costs are at the heart of the dispute. The union opposes efforts by the three chains to have their employees help pay for rising medical benefits. It also rejects what it says is a proposed "two-tier" system of pay for veterans and new hires.
And if Gephardt is elected president, he will work to see that Texas and all other right-to-work states lose those rights.
I found this:
That's why the picketers you see outside your store are coming from another store and another neighborhood. They are not the employees of that particular store where they are picketing.
Of course, I'm sure Gephardt and cronies will manage to pass laws outlawing automatic scanning sans clerks.
That's not true in the case of the Ralph's by my house. I spent 15 minutes talking to picketers...employees I know from shopping there...including April...a woman I know from the neighborhood. Since they've stopped picketing at Ralph's these people I know have moved to Albertson's...so I now shop there.
Good for you :-)
I have not recognized any of the picketers at the Albertson and Ralph's stores I shop at. I was told they were not employees of those stores. I'm not sure why there is the difference unless location and abundance of picketed stores is a factor. It made sense to me to have unfamiliar faces on the picket line at your neighborhood store rather than use the same employees that the customers will have to face once the strike is over (not to mention what this hostility does to employee/employer relations once the strike is over). But then, no one ever accused the unions of having good business sense....
In a discussion I had with her she said she's against the strike and would rather be working. Unfortunately, she can't and for obvious reasons. When I told her I don't support the strike and why (I'm against all unions) she said she understood and I believe her. Some people are truly stuck in the middle.
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