LOS ANGELES, Nov. 8 — As 80 picketing workers bellowed chants outside the supermarket Thursday evening, Rosalyn Colvard, a grocery stocker, said she would need help from welfare to make ends meet if Southern California's three largest grocery chains won their four-week-old battle with 70,000 workers.þþFor the cashiers and stockers on the picket lines, the fight to fend off large-scale concessions is a struggle to avoid being thrown into one of America's lowest castes, the working poor. But for the supermarkets, the confrontation, the biggest labor dispute in the nation in recent years, is a painful investment to ensure that they can survive against Wal-Mart and other low-cost rivals.þþÿThe stakes are enormous,ÿ said Ruth Milkman, chairwoman of the University of California Institute for Labor and Employment. ÿIf the employers succeed in their effort to extract large concessions, they will turn these into low-wage jobs, and other employers across the nation will see this as a green light to try to do the same thing.ÿþþThe feuding sides appear to be dug in. On one side is the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which for over 60 years has obtained such good wages and benefits that the region's supermarket workers can lay claim to being part of the middle class, or at least the lower rungs of the middle class. The workers' pay ranges from $7.40 an hour for baggers with 30 months on the job to a $17.90 maximum for cashiers.þþÿIf we lose this fight, there go 70,000 jobs that will no longer be middle-class jobs,ÿ said Connie Leyva, president of the food workers' local in San Bernardino County. ÿIt would have huge ramifications on the economy of Southern California.ÿþþOn the other side are the supermarket chains, led by Steven A. Burd, chief executive of Safeway, a former management consultant who told the workers that they had ÿCadillac benefitsÿ that were too generous in this era of retail hypercompetition. Unlike most Americans, the supermarket workers do not pay any premiums for health insurance. þþÿWe view this as an investment in our future,ÿ Mr. Burd told Wall Street analysts last month in a conference call. ÿAnd I'm confident that my bargaining partners view it exactly the same.ÿ þþEach side says the showdown, which involves a strike and a lockout, has reached a critical stage, and each insists that the other is suffering badly and may soon soften its position. The grocery chains involved — Albertsons; Vons, owned by Safeway; and Ralphs, owned by Kroger — lost more than $131 million in sales in each of the showdown's first weeks, according to Merrill Lynch. And many workers acknowledge that a month without regular paychecks hurts badly.þþMillions of shoppers are unhappy, too. Across Southern California, 859 supermarkets are involved in the dispute, causing Californians to debate whether to cross the picket lines as they weigh personal convenience against support for the workers. During the stoppage, the picketed stores have stayed open, but sales have dropped by two-thirds, industry analysts estimate.þþThe two sides have not negotiated since Oct. 11, when workers at Vons walked out, but the next day Albertsons and Ralphs struck back by locking out their unionized workers to show solidarity with Vons. As evidence that the dispute is taking its toll, the two sides agreed on Friday to resume talks on Monday, joined by Peter J. Hurtgen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.þþOn the picket line, workers often grow furious as they discuss the concessions demanded by management: a two-year freeze on raises for current workers, a requirement that workers pay $780 in annual premiums for family health coverage, and a cap on annual employer health contributions, which would most likely cause a decrease in benefits.þþÿWhat gets me is they want to take away many of my medical benefits and have me pay more for it,ÿ said Kelly Klinge, a $10.90-an-hour merchandise clerk at a Vons.þþManagement wants to create a second tier of wages and benefits for new employees. The proposed tier calls for paying new cashiers $10 an hour after 30 months on the job, 44 percent lower than the $17.90 under the old contract, union officials say. Newly hired cashiers would eventually rise to $15.10 an hour, but only after eight years on the job.þþMs. Colvard, the stocker, said management's demands to have workers pay more for health insurance and to cut bonuses for working on Sundays would leave her with too little money to support herself and her two children. She said she was on welfare until 1996 when she took a job with Albertsons, where she earns $12.17 an hour. Like most of the supermarket workers, she is assigned just 24 to 32 hours a week, making her annual pay around $18,000.þþÿManagement's offer is fine if you live in less expensive states like Florida or North Carolina, but it just won't cut it in California,ÿ she said. ÿIf I have to start paying more for my health coverage, I don't know how I'm going to afford rent and food and clothes for my kids.ÿþþAs she spoke, a striker behind her carried a sign reading, ÿDon't Let Us Become Another Wal-Mart.ÿþþThe three chains have said that they need concessions because mighty Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, will soon open the first of 40 grocery-selling supercenters planned for Southern California over the next five years. Wal-Mart's grocery workers average less than $9 an hour.þþÿThe supermarkets don't have a choice,ÿ said Lisa Cartwright, an analyst with Citigroup Smith Barney. ÿThey're losing market share to alternative formats, whether it's Wal-Mart, Dollar Stores or wholesale clubs. They are in a tough position, and they have to find ways to compete more effectively.ÿ þþShe said the California battle ÿwould set a trend for the supermarket industry in other regions,ÿ especially if a new contract created a lower second tier. þþThe workers dread a second tier. Under management's proposal for workers at that level, the supermarkets would contribute $1.35 per hour toward health coverage, coming to about $1,800 a year per worker, enough to finance minimal coverage. That compares with the $5,000 that the supermarkets contributed annually per worker under the old contract. þþÿThe new hires would have low pay, little in the way of medical benefits, and no pension, so what kind of a future will they have?ÿ said Maria Solorzano, a cashier for 18 years. ÿWe're out here picketing to protect the people who come after us.ÿþþMany workers said that if management got its way, it would have huge incentives to push out old employees to make way for lower paid new workers. ÿThe two-tier system means current employees will walk around with a target on their head,ÿ said Mike Morales, a cashier in Pomona.þþMr. Burd told the Wall Street analysts that Safeway's health expenses would increase by $130 million in three years if it did not address health costs. He said that the strike's cost was ÿa very small number compared to accepting business as usual.ÿ þþSafeway officials would not make Mr. Burd or other officials available for interviews. Spokesmen for Vons and Ralphs did not return phone calls, and an Albertsons spokesman declined to comment. þþTo turn up the heat, the union has begun picketing and running advertisements in Northern California urging consumers not to shop at Safeway stores there.þþMany shoppers have honored the picket lines out of loyalty to cashiers, baggers and stockers and turned to Stater Brothers and other supermarkets not involved in the dispute. But now customers are complaining that lines at Stater Brothers have grown too long and its parking lots too crowded. þþOn Oct. 31, the union pulled its pickets from Ralphs, giving shoppers a green light to go there, saying that Ralphs had taken a less hard-line stance than the other chains.þþSlowly but surely, union leaders acknowledge, the number of shoppers crossing the picket lines is growing.þþþþþ
Source: NY Times
