Not to hijack but, are other unions honoring the picket lines? Last grocery strike we had ended when deliveries stopped and the stores ran out of milk, bread & other essentials.
I wouldn’t cross, but I don’t.
Troub, I respect your opinion and the crafting of your argument.
Should employers and employees negotiate one-on-one? Ideally, yes, but the model for an employer paying the same wage for the same work isn’t a union invention (for example, Henry Ford paid all his assembly line workers $5/day a long time before there was a United Auto Workers). It exists in manufacturing, health care, civil service and a lot of other industries besides retail. The alternative in this particular instance is that 3 employers negitiate (literally) 10,000 separate agreements with employees. The idea of employers and employees negotiating as units is a perfectly acceptable alternative.
Besides, even businesses who do negotiate with employees individually often use the same pay scale. It’s literally as old as the Bible (the parable of the workers in the vineyard, Matthew 20. I know Jesus wasn’t an economist, but he had to be using an example his audience could relate to.)
I don’t think your characterization of “a whole mob of people threatening to destroy your business” is necessarily accurate. Remember, two out of the three employers here chose to lock out the whole mob of people. It is equally accurate (and inaccurate) to characterize the scenario as “two companies acted to destroy their employees’ livelihoods unless they took what was offered.”
Are the workers shooting themselves in the foot? Are the employers shoting themselves in the foot? Perhaps, but the OP was “would you cross a picket line?” and not “is this a stupid gamble?” Let’s agree that if the employers were rolling in money, there most likely wouldn’t be friction over a new contract.
Are you free to hold the business hostage until it meets your demands? Certainly there’s historical precedent. Workers have been going on strike for centuries. Companies have threatened to fire their employees or withdraw business from their suppliers unless they got concessions for at least as long. The right to organize and to strike is codified under U.S. law. If you’re offered a new job, and your current employer offers to match the deal, isn’t that holding him hostage?
I don’t want to stray too far from the original point I was trying to make. There are a lot of posters here who’ve made up their minds that the employees should take what’s offered, or quit. I don’t see it that way, and until there’s a new contract, I’ll shop somewhere else.
So what? You can’t pay an extra nickel on a $2.99 sack of potatoes so some single mother can take her kid to the emergency room when he breaks his arm? Groceries have gotten so cheap it’s absurd. I’d rather they cut back on all the half price sales and “buy-one-get-one-free” and instead pay people a realistic amount and be able to have enough staff to keep stuff stocked.
I just think if I was getting shafted at my job I’d like to think there were people who were sympathetic. That’s why I wouldn’t cross the line. Crossing the line is like telling the workers “what you do isn’t important and neither are you.”
I’m just curious. When all these grocery workers and truck drivers “improve themselves” and quit their jobs and become doctors and lawyers and professional basketball players, where are you going to get your food from?
College is not an option for everyone. If you’re not super-bright, your parents are broke, and you have little athletic ability, you’re pretty SOL.
Yeah, some people can beat the odds, but if you have children to care for, or an elderly parent, trying to juggle a job, school, and family can be nearly impossible.
Even computer programming jobs are not bountiful. I know a few folks who hold Master’s degrees who are scrambling to find work–any work.
Why does everyone keep talking about low wages working for a grocery store? Obviously I don’t know what every person makes at every grocery store, but from those I know and have known, as well as the quoted salary from the above-linked article (A journeyman clerk now earns $17.90 an hour with fully paid family health insurance and a guaranteed pension.), grocery store workers get paid VERY well, indeed. 20 years ago, when I was in college, my then-boyfriend was a union worker at a national grocery chain and he was making $15.00-$20.00/hour. And time-and-a-half for weekends. And double-pay for working holidays.
Also from that linked article it appears that the issues are: [ul][li]$1,300 annual premium payments for family insurance. (That’s $108/month out-of-pocket contribution for family insurance. My husband and I pay more than DOUBLE that so that we can both be covered by his company’s insurance. I am NOT crying for these guys one bit. Yeah, yeah, I read the “with no wage increase” part – so what? What would be the point of the employers asking that the employees start making a contribution towards family healthcare costs, only to cover said costs via a pay increase anyway? It makes absolutely no sense.)[/li][li]“significantly lower wage and benefit package for new hires.” (Uhm, how does this affect current employees?) [/ul] [/li][quote]
“After 33 years in the business, this is how they thank me?” said Tibor Sziklay, who works at an Albertsons in Huntington Beach. “These companies are making money. They just want to make more.”
[/quote]
They’ve thanked you every day for the past 33 years by paying you an exorbitant salary with full health benefits for you and your family as well as giving you a guaranteed pension. According to albertsons.com, you also receive the following benefits: [ul]
[li]Vision care[/li][li]Prescription drug coverage[/li][li]Dental care[/li][li]Disability benefits[/li][li]Life insurance benefits[/li][li]Holidays/personal days[/li][li]Vacation[/li][li]Professional liability coverage and continuing education [/ul]Go cry a river to someone who gives a hoot, 'cause that ain’t me. [/li]
Yes, if they’re picketing at the Albertson’s I shop at, I will definitely cross that line. I think they’re being whiney crybabies and I’m glad their employer isn’t paying their blackmail.
whatami wrote
Well, I really have nothing new to add as far as facts go; other posters from both sides have pretty much covered the arguments.
My position is that strong arm tactics are wrong. A strike is more than a threat; it’s a brute-force means to put the other party out of business until they relent to demands.
When a large corporation uses this tactic to get concessions from other parties, it’s called “anti-competitive” and is very illegal.
When a nation (or group of nations) does this, it’s called a cartel, and is also frowned upon (though there’s not much that can be done to “illegalize” it.)
Also, just as in the above two examples (cartels and monopolies), unions create financial advantage for themselves that exceeds what the market defines as fair. They exist for the sole reason that they can – by threat of force – get money for their members that they are not entitled to. Which is why it’s illegal for monopolies. And which is why it should be illegal for unions.
A union is just another collection of people organized for their own common good just like a corporation. The fact that they represent “people” is irrelevant. So do corporations.
That’s my opinion, anyway.
So how much more a month are you willing to pay on groceries? $5? $100? Maybe there’s some poor lady out there who can barely afford the “absurdly cheep” groceries at their current price.
TaxGuy wrote
As you can see from my posts, I’m anti-union as well. But all labor is honest labor. The fact that someone only makes minimum wage doesn’t mean they don’t deserve my respect, and it doesn’t mean that they deserve a shitty life.
You’re not really doing the anti-union side any service by acting like the other side is comprised of stupid people, entitled to nothing.
I hate to go off topic again, but I want to comment on this. It’s rare for a grocery store to lose money on a sales like this. Most often grocery sales ($$ coming in) increases during the time you have a hot ad. The store or company may lose on an individual item (loss leader - Though one exec refused to call it that, saying a loss never leads you anywhere) but make that up on others. Many times the store isn’t even losing money on that item. They’ve probably negotiated a better cost from their suppliers.
**Bill H.**Thanks for the explanation. While I don’t agree with you, I do understand what you’re saying.
One thing about this strike that does bother me is the wage increase (or lack of I guess).
My company has frozen wages for the last two years. Why? Because the economy is weak. I can understand that. I don’t have to like it, and I get upset when I see we made money last quarter, but with unemployment still around 9%, what choice do I have. At least I’m one of the lucky ones who hasn’t been laid off.
voguevixen wrote
I applaud you for your attitude, but surely you realize that you’re proposing a bad business plan for the store owner, one that will drive him out of business. The fact is that the market sets salaries, and an employer that pays higher than the market bears will lose out to an employer that pays fair rates. And this is especially true in a low-margin business like we’re discussing here, where basically every grocery store has the same merchandise, and profits are already very thin.
Like any other industry, there’s always room for new workers at the bottom. I worked plenty of low-paying jobs (some below minimum wage) as a younger man, and my moving up hasn’t reduced the pool. In fact, it’s job-opportunity for someone who might otherwise not have a job.
Let’s put this in other terms.
A journeyman clerk at a supermarket is making $37,232 per year BEFORE benefits, pensions, and anything else.
His union dues (at the aforementioned 2.5% rate) would be $930.80 per YEAR.
That’s over $3,000 per month.
That’s more than I was making at my last job when I was general manager of the place.
I’m in the wrong business.
Damn straight I’ll cross.
Heh. If only you knew how right you are. I know a lot of grocery store workers. I’d be thrilled to be one myself. The economy is just that bad that “bagger” is a coveted job amongst new college graduates- especially those with the misfortune to get an IT degree in the heady days of the dot com boom, only to discover that their degree is as worthless as if they had studied Ukrainian Folklore instead.
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- Not to pick on any one person, but the wages paid in CA and the wages paid in the St Louis are are apparently two different things. The store I work at has no baggers, just cashiers and department clerks and managers. Wages start out at around a dollar above minimum wage, and the total hours when starting out rarely total over 20 hours per week. The stores on the Missouri side pay about a dollar an hour more, just because the state taxes are lower… And that includes partial-coverage health insurance, but only after paying union dues for a whole year.
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Newspaper notices/advertisements are offering $10/hr for part-time replacement workers at all three stores (on the MO side only), and $12 for full-time. Many stores were open 24-hours, but right now are only open from 10AM to 7PM.
- Well, I don’t bag groceries, I stock shelves. I did get an associate’s degree in comp sci over the last four years going part-time, but it hasn’t been of much use so far: 2-3 years ago, when I searched Monster.com for jobs in the St-Louis area of all types, I’d commonly find 1500-2000 postings, with maybe 150 of those being IT jobs, and maybe 5-10 entry-level jobs. When I looked about a month ago, there were only about 150 jobs total posted for the St Louis area, five were IT jobs, and four of those were upper-management entrprise-level positions. The one that wasn’t was described as “entry-level”, and asked for MS certification “in Win95 or NT” and a bachelor’s degree.
I didn’t bother calling.
And I’ve pretty much stopped looking. I have a couple of my own business ideas I am looking into, because neither would cost a lot of money to try, neither of them has anything to do with computers, and I’m definitely not missing any great opportunities in the IT job market. The only “job offers” I have gotten so far are for small, website troubleshooting tasks that weren’t nearly often enough nor did they pay enough to give up stocking shelves at night. I’m not particularly angry or depressed about this, I did what a lot of other people did and got caught in the rush–but it is a bit annoying.
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(For more evidence that what I am saying is true, just visit www.slashdot.org and search for stories containing the words “outsourcing India”)
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you know, not everyone deserves a raise. No offense, but being a grocery clerk isn’t difficult. Anyone can do it. Proof of that would be that these stores were able to hire people off the street and train them to run cash registers and stock shelves within 24 hours of the strike.
You know, you should get paid for what you do and how you do it. These grocery people are making more than a lot of policemen and firemen. They don’t deserve it. Maybe the policeman/fireman example was a bad one, but the fact remains that these people are wanting to get paid more for a job that can be done by anyone. And I mean ANYONE. Why should they feel like they can demand more when they’re not worth it? There job isn’t dangerous, they don’t work long hours, they do nothing but scan groceries. Most of them aren’t even friendly and can’t form a complete sentence without bitching to the cashier next to them.
Thats what I don’t understand and that’s why I cross the picket lines and think those on strike are complete morons.
ugh. There = their. my bad.
So you say that a union is just like a corporation, yet yo deny to unions the same sort of bargaining tactics that you allow to corporations? Interesting logic.
And Tax Guy, no-one says that you have to support unions. But your obvious contempt for low-paid workers is, in itself, contemptible.
Don’t twist an ankle getting down off that soap box, even, it’s a tall one. I have walked where you speak. I was “downsized” in February 2001 from a company where I had worked over 15 years. My reviews were excellent and my boss was not happy about seeing me go, either. It was purely a bloodletting to save money for the company. I and my wife did what we had to do to support my family until such time (almost a year) that I found a good job. During that time we did not miss a meal or get behind on bills. Even in a tight labor market you can support a family.
Not only do I still oppose labor unions, but I still do business with the company that downsized me. It was a businss decision on their part, nothing more. If I had wanted to leave their employ I could have, at any time. Why should their side of the deal be any different?
If I lived in the area, I would defenitely cross. In fact, I’d drive 10 miles out of my way just to shop at a store with striking workers. Don’t these unions realize that by forcing extra costs onto the stores, they’re basically inviting Wal-Mart to come in and put the other grocery stores out of business. I thought unions were supposed to protect workers’ jobs. What they’re doing is pretty much opening the door for Wal-Mart to come in, undercut the prices, grab the market share, and guess what happens next. The workers suddenly don’t have their raise, they don’t have a job.
I wouldn’t cross it. I wouldn’t have my family starving or using tree bark for toilet paper either. I’d find another store, even a corner bodega.
I’m a member of two unions, used to be in three. The wages spoken of in the O.P. are horrendously low. They need to strike, and get what they are asking for. Yes, I would spend 125.00 for groceries instead of 110.00 if it means the person loading up the produce or slicing my meats is able to feed their family and get to a hospital when they need to.
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