cross the picket line--or not?

Great Debates
41

The point being missed here by those who are proud to cross the picket line is that no one has an entitlement to a neighborhood grocery store.

You want food? Grow your own. Oh, you don’t want to grow or can’t grow your own? Then people must work the store, and they deserve an acceptable lifestyle for making your life more convenient.

The grocery stores in California have declared that since healthcare costs are rising, the workers should suddenly have to pick up more of the tab out of their own pocket, so the store can stay competitive with Wal-Mart and others.

The three chains thought they could simply dictate the lifestyles of their workers to them, and they found out differently. It’s nobody’s job to subsidize their bottom line at their own expense. None of them are going to have an easy time until the strike is over, and what’s more, they may end up with an unusual excess of Halloween merchandise they will have to unload at a loss.

If the chains had been smart, they would have supported unionizing efforts at Wal-Mart, whose prices are artificially low due to substandard treatment of their employees. It’s not the same as manufacturing or IT jobs which can be exported overseas. If California Wal-Marts unionized, prices would stay on an even keel in this state.

I see many numbers being thrown around in this thread, but nothing to back them up. How much are the workers being asked to contribute, and what percentage of their total pay is it?

If they found it acceptable, they would not strike. It’s that simple. Nobody needs to lose the many days of work pay, and there is always the risk that customers who begin to shop elsewhere will not come back after the strike, costing jobs. But the bagboys and cashiers are not required to work under any conditions they find unacceptable, and they are free to seek out conditions they prefer, whether its leaving that job for another, or demanding them of their current employer. Could it backfire on them? Sure. That’s their problem, not yours.

No one is striking just to make life hard for you, and whatever indignities you’ve decided to put up with in life have no bearing on what the grocery workers should accept for themselves.

I will not be crossing the picket line. Edith and the others at my local Vons who smile at me whether I’m the first customer or the 400th, who don’t give me a lot of crap when I need to make a return, and who get things out of the back for me when the shelves have run out deserve my support.

They’ll be just as happy if I take my business to Stater Brothers or Amapola, putting the pressure on their employer to get this settled as quickly as possible before they lose me as a customer permanently.

42

There are indeed. One of the simplest is blocking the entrances by sitting down and locking arms.

OK, let’s take a look at this situation. We have a group of workers on strike for some reason, be it around wages or better health benefits. They are unable to prevent scabs from going to work, which means the employers can keep things running. Enough scabs get in, the employers now have a workforce that they don’t need to pay as much to work. They fire the striking workers, who are now out of jobs and will be forced to find jobs at less pay than they were earning. All the workers lose.

43

I’m a single working mom who’d be willing to pay a little more each week to support a living wage for the lowest paid workers at the grocery store. Maybe that single working mom wouldn’t have to struggle so much to make ends meet if she made more than minimum wage.

I don’t shop at Wal-mart, and I never will. The stores are filthy, and their employees are miserable grunts who never get a break. I’ll pay .05 more at the local shop down the road.

44

This sounds like the ideal resolution to the problem.

45

True, but they do help to foster the notion that “management” and “employees” are completely separate classes of people with irreconcilable goals and objectives.

You forgot to mention that he is the son of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, a company with a market capitalization of almost $260 billion. That’s a lot of wealth his family created for a lot of people. I think they are entitled to a fair-sized chunk of it, don’t you?

Eh…bad news for Enron, good news for my company. Well, my new company. My last job in a Big-5 got pretty screwed since Andersen screwed it up for all of us.

You make it sound as if there’s some fat guy smoking a cigar and wearing a monocle laughing yelling at his employess “Tote that pallet-jack!! Lift that milk crate!”.

And what if I decide to climb over you? Never mind that as soon as you block the entrance, I’m sure the owners are well within their rights to have you removed - by force if necessary. IANAL but I’m pretty sure you don’t have the right to interfear with other people who want to work or conduct business in that establishment just because you are disgruntled.

46

The wage that the employees get paid is the wage set by the market. If the employer down the street offers a better wage, they quit their current employer and go down the street.

An employer who won’t or can’t pay its employees enough to keep them is soon out of business.

When the workers collectively demand wages higher than the market price, i.e. when they strike, then all those other folks who are willing to do the job at the wage the employer is offering step forward and offer to take over.

Whether these non-union workers have done anything wrong is, as demonstrated by this thread, a subject of considerable dispute. Olentzero and others in this thread are sure that they have. So sure in fact that they advocate using physical means–albeit physical means that are, in theory at least, “non-violent”–to prevent these non-union workers from going to work. These non-union workers are misguided, you see, and even though these non-union workers don’t see it, they are hurting all workers, including themselves, by “stealing” jobs from the union workers. So it’s best for all concerned if we prevent these non-union workers–by force if necessary–from exercising their free will and taking jobs previously held by the striking employees.

It will surprise no one to learn that I don’t share this view. I know that I’m not as wise as [B/]Olentzero** and others suppose themselves to be. I say that if the employer and the non-union workers agree on a wage, in other words if the non-union workers accept the wage offered by the employer, then that is the end of the matter. I don’t think I’m wise enough, or enlightened enough, to decide for someone else in this situation whether they should or shouldn’t accept the employers offer.

And I also think that the union employees should not be permitted to prevent these non-union workers from accepting the employers’ offer in the name of “protecting all workers,” or indeed for any other reason.

Once you accept that proposition (and I know that many smart people don’t) then in practical terms that’s the end of the matter. A strike cannot work, because new workers will just come in to take the place of the striking workers.

47

To answer the OP, a strike is a business dispute betwene two other parties. If I’m not one of those parties, I couldn’t care less. Crossing a picket line is, to me, about as important a statement as walking by someone haggling with a salesperson.

Whether or not unions are “useful” strikes me as being a question of utter irrelevance. If the employees think they’re useful, then they should form a union. If they can use the union to get more money, I say good for them. You’d have to be some kind of idiot to NOT leverage more scratch if you have the opportunity. I want more pay and so does everyone else in this thread. If that means a strike, have at it. It’s not my business either way.

48

No, actually I’m implying that looking up the cites is more trouble than I was willing to go to for that particular post.

I must admit, however, that I’m astonished at how easily I can be goaded into action. Let’s recap with what I actually said:

Please note the word approaches.

Now, kindly click on these links for UCFW local 1167and UCFW local 135 contracts with Food 4 Less. Scrolling down to Appendix A for both of these contracts will show you that a journeyman meat cutter earns $17.73/hr, as of 08/25/03. I trust that this meets any reasonable standard for approaching $18.00/hr.

Now that I’ve established that I didn’t just make up facts, can we discuss the question of just which “side of the argument” you are attributing to me?

You go first, please; I will be happy to disabuse you of any errors I find in your assumptions, once you make it clear just what they (your assumptions) are.

49

You are making the same wrong assumption that unions often do - that companies are always profitable, regardless of any other factors (such as labor costs), and that it is simply a matter of squeezing more out of the greedy, selfish, corrupt managment who are infinitely wealthy.

No, only the union workers lose. The scabs have jobs, so they win. The rest of us get lower prices, so we win.

The only thing lost was the credibility of the union bosses who claimed that unions workers were worth more than they were getting.

The only way “all the workers” would lose would be if the unions were successful in keeping anyone from being hired as a replacement worker, or if they could keep anyone from shopping at the struck business - and the store closed down. Then the union workers lose, and the scabs lose.

Same loss for the credibility of the union bosses, though.

Regards,
Shodan

50

Would you mind pointing out where I make that assumption? I said nothing about whether all companies were profitable, I talked about the nature of profit and what capitalists are often compelled to do in order to keep whatever profits they can coming in.

Jobs with low pay, scanty (if any) health benefits, and God knows what kind of hours and conditions. Yeah, a real victory. Do you honestly think the jobs the scabs get are completely identical to the jobs the union members walked out of? And by that I don’t mean the duties they’re expected to perform, but the pay and benefits they receive in exchange.

With no guarantee as to the quality of the goods or the sanitary condition of the store. You’re forgetting that the scabs hired as replacements probably aren’t going to be as highly trained or as skilled as the union employees, so there’s a greater risk of, say, contaminated meat, for example. Using low prices as the main, if not the only, criterion for measuring the quality of one’s life is incredibly short-sighted.

So every strike that happens is at the direction of union bosses? Strikes occur because the union bureaucracy wants one, regardless of the desires of the rank and file? Hardly. More often than not strikes occur despite the best efforts of the union bosses to put a damper on the anger of the membership.

That leads to the question of whether the grocery store employees should take over the store and run it by and for themselves. It’s been done here before - the general strike in Seattle of 1919 and the Minneapolis Teamster strike in 1934 are two highly illustrative examples.

51

Isn’t a strike (or lock-out) a part of setting the market price of labor? A strike (or lock-out) simply means that the union (or management) does not accept the other party’s bid. Once there is an agreement, that’s the market price.

Of course those workers who cross the picket line are currently working for a different market price. But it may change, depending on the outcome of the labor dispute. Strikes, lock-outs, and picketing are all a part of a free market, just as the store going out-of-business from high labor costs or the store hiring long-term replacement workers.

52

Sure thing. It’s high time we got back on the subject of this particular strike. Deciding to cross the picket line should be based on a knowledge of the facts, as DMC said earlier.

I first looked up this article, which I’d read in print last night but didn’t have on me this morning. I’ve used it as the basis for further Googling.

The two main grievances UFCW Local 770 has are:

-The proposed two-tier wage system, which would cut the pay for new hires (max pay $14.90/hr down from $17.90/hr) and would allow managers discretion over how many hours to give to employees (creating the potential for the lower-paid employees to work longer hours), and

-Proposed increases in employee contributions to health insurance. This site lays it all out fairly clearly, but I’ll sum it up.

Under PPO coverage, the increases would be:

No family, no catastrophe: from $234/yr to $1,480/yr.
No family, catastrophe: from $976/yr to $3,020/yr.
Family, no catastrophe: from $640/yr to $4,095/yr.
Family, catastrophe: from $1,844/yr to $6,675/yr.

What about HMO coverage? Not much better.

No family, no catastrophe: $54/yr to $1,200/yr.
No family, catastrophe: $126/yr to $1,930/yr.
Family, no catastrophe: $90/yr to $3,685/yr.
Family, catastrophe: $144/yr to $4,745/yr.

No matter how you slice it, workers’ paychecks would have a huge bite taken out of them under the new medical coverage plans. This isn’t whining over a few cents; this is outrage over highway robbery.

The grocery store chains, as was mentioned, are pleading that their profits are being hurt through competition with Wal-Mart. This page shows that barely 30% of Kroger’s and Albertson’s stores, and not even 20% of Safeway stores (which owns Von’s), are in competition with a Wal-Mart supercenter. Now, allow me to quote at length:

Essentially, then, the justification for increasing the employees’ medical contributions is shown to be a bald-faced lie, and Von’s refusal to negotiate - as well as Ralph’s and Albertson’s decisions to lock out their workers - proves to be nothing more than petty moneygrubbing on the corporations’ part.

So, the decision is still yours. Would you want the out-of-pocket cost for your family’s medical coverage to increase 4,000%? Do you think someone making $14.90 an hour would be able to afford such an increase? Especially considering the store’s management is probably going to give more hours to the staff that works for less pay? If none of that really matters to you and your need for fresh broccoli, by all means go ahead and cross that picket line. But if you think there’s no good earthly reason why a grocery store employee should have his pay cut so sharply (and it is a pay cut!), then go here and find out where you can get your groceries. But don’t stop there - go down to the Von’s or Ralph’s or Albertson’s and offer your support. Walk with them a bit, buy an extra can of coffee or sandwich supplies for them, and when the strike’s over (and the UFCW has, hopefully, won) go back to that store and patronize it.

53

Sure, no problem.

So if unions get everything they want, that only results in a smaller profit margin. The idea that labor costs might exceed profits does not seem to be considered.

You said pretty much the same thing here.

Again, the idea that there might not be any profits (and therefore no jobs) if the unions get too greedy doesn’t seem to enter into the equation.

As compared to no job at all? Yes, I call that a victory.

And try not to get so carried away with Dickensian visons of the poor exploited masses starving in a cold attic because they have to kick in another $25 a week for medical coverage for their families. Wal-mart isn’t unionized, and I didn’t notice a lot of workers dying of starvation there when we shopped there a week or so back.

No, almost by definition they would not be. The workers would be employed at whatever rate (of wages and benefits) the market determines.

Running a cash register or stocking shelves?

Please.

Another problem with unions and their defenders - the laughable level of hysteria in their rhetoric. Every manager is a greedy grinder of the faces of the poor, every union member is a salt-of-the-earth secular saint, hovering on the brink of starving with his family if it weren’t for the tireless efforts of the union.

Then it turns out to be grocery clerks complaining about dental insurance and “My contacts would cost me over $300” because they have to contribute something towards their health care. And everyone in America who has been doing the same for twenty years starts to tune out.

Take over the store? Doesn’t it bother you that the store belongs to someone else?

Picket if you like - I will respect it if I think you are justified, or ignore it if I don’t. If I choose to ignore it, you’d best not interfere with me as I do my shopping, or it may become an encounter you regret. If you attempt to take over the store and run it for your own benefit, better get ready to organize the "State Prison Bitches of Bubba and His Friends Union ". :wink:

Regards,
Shodan

54

Tell me something, Shodan, does it bother you that Ronald Reagan was once the president of a union.

55

That’s a good point.

I don’t object to picket lines. I do object to people that cross picket lines to work (“scabs”) being threatened, harrassed, and attacked. As long as the union members obey the law, then a picket line is an absolutely acceptable tactic in negotiation.

  • Rick
56

Sure, because it’s patently ludicrous. Take a look at the profit figures I quoted in my last post. That’s after having taken out labor costs. The grocery store workers would have to be making quite a bit more than they already are for their labor costs to eat into what Albertson’s took in as profit for 2002.

I think the out-of-pocket medical costs proposed by management in the table I linked to show a much larger increase than $25 a week, don’t you?

So the market determined that maximum pay for new hires should be reduced by $3.00/hr, and that out-of-pocket medical costs should increase 4,000%?

Right, never mind the meatpackers or the people who handle the seafood and the dairy products in the freezer. Or the people who handle raw food that gets cooked in the deli section.

Hey, nobody said they had free health care to begin with. Affordable, yes. And the company’s trying to do away with that.

No, not really.

Bricker - the law is often used to break strikes. Why should striking union members be concerned with obeying laws if those same laws can be used against them?

57

There are two reasons. The first is that attacking someone else’s person, or vandalizing their property, is simply wrong. It’s malo in se - wrong in and of itself, not wrong merely because the law prohibits it.

The second is that while there is a place for civil disobedience, it’s not found in attacking private citizens or destroying their property. If I accept that you have the moral authority to decide to break the law because it doesn’t please you, then I implicitly concede that power to others. When I’m in jail for bombing abortion clinics or stealing money from banks that charge interest in violation of Biblical law, I hope you’ll be there to testify in my defense.

  • Rick
58

The problem woith your post, Olentzero, is that it uses as the basis of your claim quotes from a Website that appears to use completely fictional numbers.

According to your post, Safeway turned $131 million in profit in 2002.

Well, I had a look at the company’s official report, and where you got that $131 million figure I simply cannot imagine. Safeway’s profits in 2002 weren’t up… they were down, WAY down. the company reported a LOSS of $828 million; I don’t know where their claimed profit of $131 million comes from, though on $32 billion in sales even that profit is basically break even. This was a change in the worse of $2 BILLION from 2001, when profits were around $1.2 billion. Earnings per share were way down, half of what they’d been in 2001. The slight increase in sales was, as it was the year before, almost entirely due to opening new stores, not because existing stores were doing better. I can see why they’re concerned.

Based on their report I see no reason whatsoever to think Safeway did well in 2002. They did horribly. Your source appears to be comprised of completely made-up numbers. What’s their source for ANY of those figures?

Albertson’s? $485 million in profit - a decline from 2001, and an almost 50% decline from four years previous.

Kroger was the only one that was up from 2001, going up about 15% Frankly, though, their annual report reads like a fifth-grade social sciences essay, so it’s kind of hard to understand exactly how much money they made. A 15% gain is my best guess.

As to your support for workers taking over things that don’t belong to them, I assume you aren’t a hypocrite, and won’t mind if I come by and take your things out of your place while you’re not home. I could use more stuff. Do you have any particular hiding place for jewelry or cash? I don’t want to miss that.

59

Your cite specifies the mean hourly wage. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the union employees represent the higher salary bracket, while the non-union’ers are on the low end.

Additionally, that $18/hr wage actually isn’t too far fetched. This may not be the starting wage, but after, say 10 years of seniority, this is attainable (given that most union contracts stipulate a yearly wage increase of ~ $0.50 to $1.00).

60

Well, yes, let’s look at those figures.

From the outset, let’s note that you get your figures from a pro-strike website, which should raise red flags.

You cited the following: **

First of all, simple increases in sales don’t tell us much of anything without also knowing how costs increased; it’s entirely possible (and not all that uncommon) for a company to grow itself into oblivion by failing to control costs as its sales increase.

But I’m curious as to the numbers, so I went and pulled Albertson’s Annual Reports for the years ended 2002 (the last full year available). When earlier year figures weren’t available in the 2002 report, I used the 2000 report (I note where this is the case by stating “2000 AR”; I use 2002 data whenever possible to avoid the impact of accounting changes, restatements and the like, and only use 2000 data when nothing else is available). For convenience, I focus on Albertson’s, and am passing on the other two.

One question to ask is, did sales increase because the individual stores were actually doing more business, or because of some other reason? I note from their 2000 Annual Report that Albertson’s completed a substantial merger with American Stores Company in mid-1999. That merger presumably added a significant number of stores to the Albertson’s family, stores that had sales of their own. A simple look at sales increases over five years would thus be misleading. (Note: the 1999 merger was accounted for by the pooling method, which consolidates both company’s financials, including past history, so this isn’t actually an issue for this particular merger; however, the pooling method became disallowed a few years ago by accounting standards bodies, so any new acquisitions would not be so consolidated for past-year comparisons).

For retailers, total sales are almost totally irrelevant. What really counts are same-store sales figures – you have to strip out stores opened and closed in the period considered.

Still, though, I do wonder where those sales percentage increases you claim come from. Albertson’s reported gross sales of $34.91 B in FY 1998, $36.33 B in FY 1999, $35.5 B in 2000, 36.6 B in FY 2001 and 35.62 in FY 2002. I don’t think I need to pull out a calculator to tell that the 1998 to 2002 increase was nowhere near your vaunted 123%. **

Well, let’s look at Albertson’s. In 2002, they had 1.82 B operating profit, which is 1.82/35.62 = 5.19% of sales. In 1998, they had 1.65 B operating profit (2000 AR), which is 1.65/34.91 = 4.72% of sales. So this is technically true for Albertson’s, but it’s hardly a significant increase. **

This is patently false, as I demostrated above. The figure is actually 5.19%-4.72%=0.47% increase over four years. The operating profit increase over four years was 1.82b-1.65b=$170m. That sounds like a lot for your vaunted workers, but Albertson’s has over 200,000 employees – that’s $850 per employee, and that’s before taking into consideration all of Albertson’s other non-operating expenses and a return for their shareholders. **

Ten years is an awfully long time horizon. How have these companies’ stock prices fared in the last couple of years? Did they have strong stock valuations in the early nineties that have begun to erode recently? This factoid doesn’t tell us anything about how the companies are doing right now.

And, in fact, that seems to be the case. Albertson’s stock and Safeway stock has been in decline since 1999. Kroger stock has fared somewhat better, treading water over the past five years.