Union surrenders benefits, wages in sellout of California grocery strike

[Aidoneus]

Union surrenders benefits, wages in sellout of California grocery strike
By Rafael Azul and John Andrews
2 March 2004

The United Food & Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) surrendered to all of the major demands of the supermarket chains after a19-week strike/lockout of 59,000 workers in Southern California. This betrayal of the longest work stoppage in the history of the US supermarket industry sets the stage for devastating rollbacks in the working conditions and living standards for hundreds of thousands of workers who already face low wages and brutal exploitation.

Union members met over the weekend to vote on the agreement, which was announced on Thursday. They were handed a 16-page summary and advised by the union to approve it with little discussion. On Sunday evening the UFCW announced that the contract had been ratified by 86 percent of those who voted, and gave no other details.

The overwhelming “yes” vote was anything but an expression of support for either the contract or the union leadership. The prevailing sentiment among the workers was disgust and bitterness over the union cave-in to the companies’ concessions demands, but the vast majority had no confidence that the union would fight for anything better and saw no alternative to accepting the deal.

A 25-year-old cashier at a Ralph’s supermarket in the Los Angeles area who voted to ratify the pact spoke for many of the workers when, interviewed at a polling place in Hollywood, he told the Los Angeles Times, “It was take it, or there’s the door. They are all thieves, the companies and the unions. They’re just sticking it to us.”

The contract includes unprecedented concessions to the supermarket chains involved in the dispute—Vons and Pavilions, which are owned by the national Safeway chain, Ralph’s, owned by Kroger, Inc., and Albertson’s. The three-year pact imposes a two-tier wage system, slashing starting wages and benefits for new-hires, and caps the employers’ contributions to the workers’ medical insurance program for all workers. This provision will result in growing cuts in employee health benefits over time.

--snip--

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/supe-m02.shtml

[OneBlueSky]

1. so now it doesn't even matter if you belong to a union . . .

since they're snuggled right in bed with the employers . . . for those jobs not sent offshore, there's no one protecting the interests of the men and women who do the work . . . while the union officials make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year . . . absolutely and thoroughly disgusting, imo . . . workers screwed again, and by those who pretend to represent them . . .

[mac2]

4. Workers abandoned by everyone. It's accepted by the

government, media, and citizens. The union leaders who did this go unpunished. We have become a lawless society.

[bemildred]

2. Yep, I'm never going back to any of them.

Two-tier will kill the union in the end, it's a poison pill.
My friend the ex-union-organizer, a fellow from the old school,
was just apalled at how this was handled.

[PATRICK]

5. two tier systems

Eventually were rolled back as unworkabale in some private industries. In the Postal Service a two tier introductory wage system meant years of fights and adjustments that reveresed the worst trends. Allowing it in is notrhing to crow about especially since the more vulnerable and powerless low paid workers might make the horror liveable for management.

Hard to see how having two workers side by side with inequitable pay can work well in a service industry. The goal of having them bitterly angry only at the union has been tried with better ploys. And it's not exactly making the upper tier feel privileged or secure either or insulated from their unfortunate younger new hires.

It is an ugly, often silent battle on both sides after such a system is put in, one still winnable by the unions.

[mac2]

6. How is this different than the Steel Workers, etc.?

The laboratory technicians were denied union membership because of their different tiles and education. This rediculous.

[mac2]

3. Fire the union leader and get another one!!

Protest the decision of the union leadership. Ask for his resignation immediately.

I know how it feels to be betrayed by a union leader. I was myself when I found, I had an occupational disability. My NY State research career, health, and financial security gone from the neglect of my employer. I was a professional.

I retrained but never recovered my health or employment. I graduated college with top marks...always been a good student. It was my sex, age, and timing (economy had gone sour in my area). I had married in the meantime, but I'd be homeless if it weren't for my husband.

My lawyer was not that helpful either saying, I should settle for $13,000 with the state. I'm trying to get myself back into seeing another lawyer over my social security benefits, etc. Even though married, that is not a promise of security.

Unions are like lawyers...to deal with many issues on your own is impossible. We need them. In the legal climate of the last twenty years, people have not been protected on the job or properly compensated when injured. None of it was my fault.

Hey, but Linda Tripp got half a million when the Justice Department revealed some of her past employment problems.

My citizens don't notice unless it hits them directly. Believe me, our system is collapsing around us.

[demosincebirth]

7. I heard he resigned already

[Mr. McD]

8. This is nothing new

Unions selling out the workers. I was in a similar situation 25 years ago. On a much smaller scale of course. It was a small company and the strike was only 6 weeks, but the workers were just as screwed.

[bemildred]

9. That is true.

I remember such from the 70s.