Just when I thought I could start using my local Von’s, which a five-minute walk from my home. The strike was settled. It wasn’t a great settlement from the workers’ point of view, since they basically got nothing they struck for. As one union leader put it, the companies won. They got the two-tier wage structure they wanted. They got the benefit reductions they wanted. They demonstrated that the employer is absolutely in charge here. I don’t think the workers got anything worth mentioning, although I haven’t heard the details on the two-tier wage structure. Maybe there was some give and take there but I have no idea what the details are.
Just when I thought it was safe to go in the local Pavilions. It turns out that the stores can and are demoting some workers and replacing others. No doubt, at the low wage scale. WTF? I thought the whole idea of collective bargaining was that you could step out, in protest of working conditions or wages, and not lose your job for doing so. I’m not in any union, but I could just as well parade back and forth in front of my employer’s office tower with a sign saying I don’t like the company dress code, or being forced to work in Windows XP, or whatever. And I’d expect to lose my job for neglecting my duties. Yet I would seem to have as much protection from losing my job in this hypothetical situation as the grocery clerks did when they struck.
Damn. Not another penny of my money will cross the counter of Von’s, Ralphs, or Albertson’s.
I’m pretty sure that you’re wrong about this Spectre. Let’s see a cite for that. That’s simply not legal and would violate the contract. Hiring, rehiring and assignment of hours is all based on seniority.
The workers did get a few very small concessions. Workers having to partially pay for their own health care is delayed until the start of the third year of the three year agreement. Also, all of the striking workers will get a lump sum payment of some kind but not nearly enough to offset what they have lost.
All in all this was a MAJOR win for managment. The final contract wasn’t much different than the original one proposed back in November. We also learned that stockers, checkers and baggers could be replaced by a newbie with three weeks of training and do just as good a job.
If there is any target for your anger, it’s not the workers or the corporation rather it’s the Union. The Union failed its members in a huge way. It was a gigantic miscalculation that was mishandled from beginning to end.
Now I can’t find a cite, but I heard it on the NBC morning news show today. Actually, I don’t think it’s fair to say that three-week newbies could do just as good a job. At least it wasn’t the case for me. The handful of times I went into one of the stores involved in the dispute, I seemed to spend a lot more time waiting in the checkout line, and the replacement workers obviously didn’t know the arrangement of the merchandise anywhere near as well as the regular employees did. All in all, shopping there during the strike, with the replacement workers on the job, was noticeably less convenient, slower, and more aggravating.
And the union did make some major mistakes. For instance, why did they just pull the pickets from Ralphs alone? It was a good move to curry support from the public, but they should have rotated that policy from company to company.
There was an article in the Santa Barbara News-Press a couple of days ago but you need a subscription to see it online. Here are some relevant passages:
I guess whether or not the replacement workers did as good a job is going to vary widely from store to store. In my experience, I was out of the store much faster with the replacement workers in place but that was mainly due to the fact that there were way fewer shoppers in the store.
It’s just the pendulum on the backswing. Union leaders were so corrupt and the work performed was so crappy in high visibility industries like automobiles through the 70s and 80s that there had to be some backlash. Once Management takes too much advantage (which they inevitably will) there will be another correction.
Nah, the correction will, hopefully, come in November. Collective bargaining has been the national policy of this nation for many decades. Bush & Co. have made and continue to make significant inroads into the entire labor movement.
No, No, No, if you do that now, Bush will just call up some of his Guard buddies; wait, after November will be soon enough. Right now labor must focus on removing Bush. (But thanks for the sentiment)
I’m a member of the “Union” that was involved in the strikes in SoCal. Since I am not in the region, however, I was not forced to strike. However, I did read the press briefs, as well as the internal Union memos circulated to member stores. The whole strike was a joke. A complete and utter waste of time and money. Not to mention, that they completely made fools out of themselves. UFCW has lost all credibility in my eyes. They have no clue what they are doing, muchless how to do it.
You guys have no idea how easy it is to replace someone at a grocery store. Typically, you get hired, go into a room and watch a “training” video, and then are placed on the floor. What you do from there, is up to you.
Basically, labor lost big time. All it did was cost the rest of us, a TON of money in union fees, and granted us no immunites from having the same occur to us. I really wish I could remove myself from the Union, but doing so would mean losing my job at the store I work at… Must transfer… Must transfer…
A friend in the central coast is also pretty pissed off at the union. From what I understand there were a few contracts on the table in the past few months, but the union wouldnt call a vote, and the offers progressively got worse as time went on. His whole impression is that the workers wishes/needs were basically secondary to the Unions desire to try to make some sort of stand or something; flex their political power, as it were. Oh tvell.
This article argues that indeed, the unions basically were unprepared for management’s attack and didn’t handle the response very well:
SofP:It turns out that the stores can and are demoting some workers and replacing others. No doubt, at the low wage scale. WTF? I thought the whole idea of collective bargaining was that you could step out, in protest of working conditions or wages, and not lose your job for doing so.
In practice, the “no-retaliation” rules are frequently violated by employers. Also, what you’re seeing could be just part of the “transition acceleration” mentioned in the quote; even if employers aren’t actively trying to punish the formerly striking employees, any excuse they can use to get rid of any of them means that a replacement can be hired for much lower pay and benefits.
I would like to point out that this is not the first time that tiered wages was accepted by this very Union. That was also the result of the last strike which was 25 years ago.
I would just like to point out that during the strike, the sound bite that appeared most often was one of a striker complaining that management wanted them to pay for health care.
Out here in the real world I haven’t had 100% employer paid health care for over 20 years. None of my friends do either. So this tactic of complaining about having to pay for health care did not generate much sympathy amoung the public.
