OS ANGELES, Feb. 6 — Four months into one of the biggest labor disputes in decades, the union representing 70,000 striking or locked-out Southern California supermarket workers is waging an increasingly confrontational — some say desperate — campaign to fend off cuts in members' health care benefits.þþA hundred union supporters shut down a Safeway in Santa Cruz for an hour and a half recently, dancing and chanting in a conga line through the store. Others disrupted a golf tournament in Pebble Beach on Friday, shouting slogans at two supermarket board members who were about to tee off. Labor leaders are threatening to harass supermarket executives wherever they vacation, be it on beaches or ski slopes.þþIn the biggest rally yet, about 14,000 union supporters demonstrated in Los Angeles on Jan. 31. Pressure against the affected supermarket chains is being brought outside Southern California as well. Thirteen union supporters were arrested not long ago at a sit-in blocking the entrance of a Safeway in Oakland. And 200, including a dozen clerics, demonstrated near the Bay Area home of Safeway's chairman, Steven Burd.þþÿThis is not a battle about Southern California; this is a war for the whole country, particularly over health care,ÿ said Ron Judd, West Coast regional director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. ÿThis should be seen as the poster child of what employers are willing to do to take away health care.ÿþþThe union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, describes its action as a goal-line stand against supermarket efforts to reduce benefits while having workers begin paying some of the premiums. Organized labor says that if the union loses here, corporate managers everywhere may be emboldened to cut back on health benefits.þþThe grocery chains maintain that with health costs soaring, it is time for workers to begin paying something for their medical coverage and for management to be allowed to limit its own contributions.þþAbout the only thing that union and management can agree on is that the dispute is exacting deep pain from both sides. The companies — Safeway, Albertsons and Kroger — have lost nearly $2 billion in sales at their 852 Southern California stores. Several union locals involved in the dispute have had to mortgage their headquarters to finance strike benefits, which, with related expenses, have on occasion amounted to $10 million a week.þþThe 70,000 workers receive no unemployment benefits, and their employer-paid health coverage ran out on Dec. 31. The insurer has offered a two-month extension for $400, which many workers have paid, some with help from the union. But others are now without coverage.þþMany also complain that their strike benefits have been cut to $125 a week from $240, and are telling of being evicted and losing their cars to repossession. Isabel Valles, a cashier for 18 years, has left her $650-a-month apartment and moved in with her mother. Maria Benancio, a cashier for nine years, is feeling so much stress that she has started taking antidepressants. þþÿIt's really hard,ÿ Ms. Benancio said. ÿI want it to be over.ÿ þþBut union and management warn that the two sides remain so far apart that the dispute could last several months more. ÿWe are ramping it up,ÿ said Richard Trumka, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s secretary-treasurer. ÿThis fight will go on as long as it takes to bring management to their senses and to negotiate a fair deal.ÿþþThe walkout began on Oct. 11, when, six days after the most recent contract expired, more than 20,000 workers struck Vons and Pavilions, two Safeway subsidiaries. In solidarity with Safeway, Kroger, which owns the Ralphs chain, and Albertsons locked out nearly 50,000 workers the next day. Safeway, Kroger and Albertsons have been negotiating jointly with the union.þþThe chains say they need to cut costs — deeply and soon — because Wal-Mart plans to open 40 combined discount stores and supermarkets in Southern California over the next five years. Grocery executives say they will not be able to compete because Wal-Mart and other nonunionized companies often pay their workers $8 an hour less in combined wages and benefits than union workers receive.þþÿThe health care plan we provide,ÿ said one supermarket executive involved in the talks, ÿis not a Cadillac plan, it's a Rolls-Royce plan. And we're providing that at zero cost to employees. This is an outdated concept that needs to change.ÿþþManagement wants workers to begin paying $260 a year for individual health coverage and $780 for family coverage. The companies hope to cap their health contribution at $4.30 an hour per worker for existing employees — and less than a third of that, $1.35, for new employees — a move the union says will undercut coverage as health costs escalate. þþManagement has also proposed a lower wage tier for new workers. Top wages currently range from $7.40 an hour for grocery baggers to $17.90 for cashiers; under the companies' proposal, top cashiers' pay would be $15.10.þþPaul Clark, a Penn State labor relations professor who edited a recent book on trends in collective bargaining, said the dispute could have nationwide repercussions. þþÿIf the union loses this and has to give back a significant portion of their health benefits,ÿ Professor Clark said, ÿyou're really moving down the road to everybody beginning to be a Wal-Mart worker with low wages and low benefits.ÿ þþMost recently there has been a burst of maneuvering. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced that he is willing to intervene to foster a settlement. Seeking to gain popular support and get their members back to work, union leaders have called for binding arbitration, but the companies said they saw no need to bring in an outsider when the federal government's top mediator, Peter Hurtgen, was already involved. Mr. Hurtgen has asked the two sides to resume talks quickly. [They now say they will do so on Feb. 11.]þþThe grocery workers' union recently asked the A.F.L.-C.I.O. to become more involved and oversee a national strategy to pressure the supermarkets. The labor federation has urged other unions to contribute millions of dollars to the cause and has asked union members to ÿadoptÿ California grocery workers to help them make ends meet.þþBrian Dowling, Safeway's chief spokesman, said the supermarkets were hardly worried about labor's pressure tactics. ÿThe market pressure that gets exerted on us if a low-cost nonunion operator is allowed to enter a market like Southern California with a major cost advantage, that's really pressure,ÿ Mr. Dowling said. ÿThe other pressure they're putting on us is ho-hum.ÿþþUnion leaders say they have offered an important concession: if the companies pledge to maintain health coverage at current levels, they say, employees will contribute even more than management has demanded, a move the union says would save the employers $340 million over the life of a three-year contract. But management says that the proposal does not address its desire to cap its contributions and that without the changes it seeks, the three companies' health costs are projected to rise by $1 billion over three years.þþOn Thursday, 250 union supporters rallied on Wall Street to warn that the dispute was making the supermarkets a bad investment. The union says analysts have found that while Safeway might save $65 million a year by cutting labor costs, the cost of the dispute in lost pretax profits could be more than twice that.þþÿEvery week this goes on, our people are hurting more; I don't minimize that,ÿ said Joseph Hansen, the union's secretary-treasurer. ÿBut I don't see how these companies recover from the losses they're suffering.ÿþþþþþþ
Source: NY Times
