Workers Pressure Union To Resolve Grocery Strike

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Workers Pressure Union To Resolve Grocery Strike

By DAVID GREENBERG

Staff Reporter

Rank and file supermarket workers are ratcheting up pressure on union leaders to accept steep concessions and end the three-month old strike.

While the pressure can’t be quantified, union officials acknowledge they are having an increasingly harder time convincing striking and locked out workers that they can prevail against deep-pocketed grocery chains.

“They are very unhappy at the length of this,” said Mike Straeter, president of Santa Monica-based Local 1442, which has 5,000 members.

Like other union leaders, Straeter claims the picketers are speaking out of frustration and would reject the employers’ proposal if it came to a vote. He noted that 98 percent of union members voted to reject the same package last fall. “They want it to end. But they don’t want to surrender,” Straeter said.

Tell that to Corey Patterson, a night shelf stocker and 15-year Vons worker whose employer-paid health insurance expired at the end of last month.

Now he has to shell out $365 of his own money to remain eligible for coverage through March in a deal the union worked out with health care providers.

That’s the only way he will be able to pay for a second surgery for his 3-year-old daughter, who was born with a cleft palate.

Patterson said last week he just wants a settlement so he can get back to work.

“I would be willing to take their contract,” said Patterson, of the employers’ proposal for deep cuts in health benefits and a two-tier wage system. “Why is (the union) keeping the workers stringing along for three months? I can’t be going off on a yo-yo string.”

One reason may be the significant national implications of the Southern California strike, which has become a focal point for debate over employer-paid health benefits.

While picketers, who have been out of work since October, have grown weary, their leadership has been making preparations for an even longer walkout. In late December, most of the striking Southern California locals cut back on strike benefits to allow their dwindling funds to last longer. They also received an infusion from the international union, and say they can now hold out until May. Additionally, the national union is making plans to picket in other parts of the country.

“Every working person in the country is watching them and they know what happens in Southern California affects everyone who gets health benefits at work,” said Jill Cashen, a spokeswoman for the international United Food and Commercial Workers.

Falling morale

Many local picketers never asked to be on the bleeding edge of a national war over health care. They see a conflict between their needs and their leaders’.

“If our union falls tomorrow, they are out of a job, we’re not,” said Patterson. “They have their interests in this too. Worst comes to worst, we’ll go back in there.”

On the picket lines, falling morale is palpable.

When the strike and lockout first began, workers were marching in front of store entrances and passing out fliers to customers encouraging them to shop elsewhere.

One evening last week, only a couple of picketers were holding their signs at a Vons on National Boulevard. The others were playing cards or dominos, or just sitting on the curb. The same was true at an Albertsons on Venice Boulevard, where instead of manning the picket lines, workers were tossing footballs.

“(Thinning lines) means less intimidation for the customers. More customers are coming inside,” said Armando Sandoval, a night supervisor and 30-year employee at the Vons store. “They are starting to talk back to us, telling us to shut up, saying we’re lazy and to go get another job.”

There are no formal lines of communication between rank-and-file union workers and their leaders. Each of the seven Southern California locals has a president, secretary-treasurer and numerous vice presidents some of them store workers on its executive board. Information about the progress of negotiations filters out from this group, with periodic updates from fliers that are passed out to strikers.

“It’s an open process within the internal structure the elected leadership of the union,” said Barbara Maynard, a labor consultant to L.A.-based Local 770, which represents 17,000 food division members. “The president keeps the executive fully abreast of the progress of negotiations.”

Keeping in touch

UFCW officials visit the picketers daily strike captains head shifts at each store and serve as point persons for the media and the unions have set up hotlines to provide updates and allow workers to record messages.

Patterson, a member of Local 1442, said he had spoken by phone and in person to union leaders but remains unhappy with the lack of progress.

Others complain they are not being kept fully informed on the status of negotiations indeed, the union only acknowledged secret talks with Safeway Inc., operator of the Vons and Pavilions chains, Albertsons Inc. and Kroger Co., parent of Ralphs, because word leaked out.

“We don’t know what’s happening,” said Ramon Cano, a 13-year employee of Vons. “(Union leadership) is keeping it hush-hush. They should let us know what’s going on whether they are making any progress or not.”

Straeter acknowledged in a hotline phone message taped Jan. 14 that many workers had demanded that UFCW negotiators resume talks and stay at the table until a deal is reached. But in his taped response, he blamed management for not meeting the union halfway. “Frankly, I think we’ve gone too far in trying to get a settlement,” his message said.

(John Arnold, a spokesman for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, said federal mediator Peter Hurtgen hoped to bring both sides back to the table before the end of January.)

Many workers are ready to give up.

In a random survey, five picketing Albertsons workers were asked if they would accept employers’ proposed concessions if it meant going back to work. Each one said yes.

“The union is playing hardball with huge corporations,” said Edward Perez, a full-time cashier with 15 years experience at Albertsons. “We don’t have that kind of power. We’re not going to get what we want. We know that now.”

Perez said he was certain that the rank and file would accept the existing employer offer. “We don’t know if the union leadership would agree to those terms,” he said.

Meanwhile, picket lines have thinned out because workers have been forced to look for other jobs, forgoing some of the $200- to $300-per-week in strike relief payments.

Not all picketers are willing to settle for less than they got in their previous contract, which expired Oct. 5, 2003.

Among them is Josette Bishop, a bakery clerk and strike captain at Albertsons who vowed to continue picketing as long as it takes to preserve the union’s wages and benefits. Her concern, she said, is that the union will cave in to her co-workers’ discontent.

“A lot of people might accept (concessions) because they’ve been out here so long that they figure that something’s better than nothing,” said Bishop. “They’re worn out. Eventually (the UFCW) will have to get us back in the store, so they’ll accept something that we really don’t want.”

Cashen, the international union spokeswoman, said she asks picketers to have faith in their leadership.

“We’re going to do everything we can to keep their morale high and hold the line for health care. All I can say is these employers are the ones keeping them out there.”

She stressed that the international is supporting the seven locals, not pressuring them to hold a firm line against employers’ demands.

Nevertheless, dissension has no doubt weakened the union’s bargaining power, said Daniel Mitchell, a UCLA professor of management and public policy. He said union leadership hurt itself from the beginning by not having a backup when it became clear the strike and lockout would last much longer than workers anticipated.

“It’s reasonable for members of the union to ask leadership, ‘What is Plan B?'” said Mitchell. “Plan A was they go on strike and eventually the economic pressure would force the supermarkets to change their offer. So far that hasn’t happened. As time goes on, your options begin to shrink.”

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