More than 30,000 Stop & Shop supermarket employees in the Northeast are returning to work after striking a deal, bringing an end to the largest private sector strike in years.þþOn Sunday evening, representatives from the United Food & Commercial Workers Union International said they had agreed on a tentative three-year contract with the company. The deal would keep employee health care and retirement benefits intact, provide wage increases instead of bonuses, and keep time-and-a-half pay for current employees who work on Sunday.þþ“Today is a powerful victory for the 31,000 hardworking men and women of Stop & Shop who courageously stood up to fight for what all New Englanders want — good jobs, affordable health care, a better wage, and to be treated right by the company they made a success,” the union said in a statement released Sunday.þþStop & Shop posted an update on its website, saying the company is glad to see employees return to work, and that its top priority is to restock empty supermarkets.þþThe new contract, which still requires approval from union members, ends a 10-day strike at hundreds of Stop & Shop stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Some stores had to close during the stoppage, while others were left with empty shelves and few customers. Cashiers and deli workers walked off the job on April 11 at 240 stores, protesting the company’s effort to slash their pay by hiking health insurance premiums and lowering pension benefits for new employees.þþThe strike had overwhelming local support, with many customers refusing to cross picket lines and bringing meals to workers protesting outside the stores.þþIn four days, more than 1,000 people donated to a hardship fund for striking workers, who weren’t getting paid during the stoppage. As of Monday, they had raised $54,000. The strike even captured attention from 2020 presidential contenders like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and former Vice President Joe Biden.þþ“The emotional ride through these last 11 days has been tremendous,” said one employee early Monday in a video recorded outside a Stop & Shop in Wallingford, Connecticut, which the union shared on Facebook. “The only thing that kept us going was the customers stopping, waiving, honking, beeping, bringing us food ... thank you.”þþThe response echoes the support for public school teachers who launched major strikes across the country in 2018 to protest low pay. It also suggests the labor unrest, which swept across the US last year, is nowhere close to dying down.þþStop & Shop wanted to cut employee benefitsþStop & Shop workers in New England had been negotiating new job contracts with the company since January, according to their labor unions. Workers want their paychecks to get larger, not smaller, they say, especially now that Stop & Shop’s profits are growing faster than before.þþThe company offered across-the-board pay raises or bonuses, but union reps say the jump in health care premiums and deductibles for employees would end up costing them more than they would get from any pay bump.þþStop & Shop executives disagreed, however, saying their latest proposal won’t increase deductibles and that all workers will end up with larger paychecks.þþStop & Shop is the only major supermarket chain in the northeastern US with a largely unionized workforce. It’s owned by the Belgian-based company Ahold Delhaize, which also runs the Giant and Food Lion supermarket brands.þþThe company said in a statement last week that it was disappointed that workers chose to carry out a stoppage to “disrupt service at our stores.” It argued that its offer, which includes bonuses and some pay raises, is reasonable, and that the union’s proposal would increase labor costs for the chain.þþ“This would make our company less competitive in the mostly non-union New England food retail marketplace,” the company wrote Thursday in an updated summary of contract negotiations.þþThe company said it’s prepared to keep stores open, but some temporarily closed because they didn’t have enough workers. In a show of support for striking employees, many customers refused to cross the picket lines.þþWithin 24 hours, the stoppage became the largest private sector strike in at least three years, showing that last year’s spike in work stoppages across the country was not an isolated phenomenon.
Source: Vox.com
