Most grocery workers reject union leader's call for strike

[Omaha Steve]

FYI. It was the Reagan recession. I was fired illegally in 1980 for union organizing. Back in 1982 I had not worked in two years. Employers don't want union trouble makers. It was the Reagan recession to boot. The UFCW went on strike. I was a paid picket for the Hinky Dinky strike for 10 weeks. We needed the $ so bad. I can never thank the UFCW enough. After the strike was over a year or so later all the stores were sold and went non-union. The last union grocery (Albertson's) closed in 2004 and laid the blame squarely on Walmart. I hope things can be worked out in Denver.

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=128878&catid=339

Kyle Clark

WHEAT RIDGE - After a split vote, a union spokeswoman offered conflicting statements on Tuesday as to whether any Colorado grocery workers had met the necessary requirements to go on strike.

A majority of King Soopers workers accepted their employer's "last, best and final" contract proposal.

The UFCW Local 7's outgoing president, Ernie Duran, Jr. had urged workers to strike.

Safeway workers voted to reject the deal, but did not meet the two-thirds margin need to prompt a strike, union spokeswoman Laura Chapin initially told 9NEWS on Tuesday.

Hours later, Chapin backed off from her original assertion there would be no strike action.

A union rule, said Chapin, allowed Duran to apply the two-thirds strike authorization rule to the membership as a whole or to individual bargaining units.

FULL story at link.

[Tansy_Gold]

1. As a former UFCW member, albeit briefly, in Arizona. . . . . .

It was always my feeling that the union members screwed themselves in 2003 when they voted to make all new hires second-class workers.

I worked at Fry's, a division like King Sooper's of the Kroger chain, in 2005. As a newly hired cashier, I made $7.25 an hour, which was the new rate the chain was allowed to pay rookie cashiers rather than the $13 or $15 an hour they used to get on hiring. None of the senior cashiers -- members before the strike -- took a pay cut, of course. And some of them were not only mean enough to lord it over us -- especially their double-time on Sunday -- but several actually accused us of hurting their chances for MORE overtime. "The store can't afford to pay us, but they can afford to hire three or four of you and cheat us out of our overtime," one woman had the nerve to sneer at me. It was my fault she couldn't make $40 an hour? excuse me? who voted for that contract?

Well, guess what. Those senior cashiers, who were making $20/hour and more, went to the union and got the right to bid on overtime, including Sundays. And because the store had budget constraints, in order to afford those $40/hour on Sunday senior cashiers, the rest of us got our hours cut. And when we did work, we were always short handed. We had to work harder and we got paid a fucking hell of a lot less.

Now, I don't know what it's like four years later. But if I were one of those second-tier UFCW workers struggling to get by on barely over minimum wage, I don't think I'd be too eager to strike in this economy either. So if there's a lack of solidarity in that union, it has only its own self to blame.



TG2012