***** January 22, 2004 Michael Hiltzik: Golden State Lengthy Strike Shows Evolution of Union Hasn't Kept Up With Rise of Grocery Giants
. . . The locals, and their brethren at UFCW headquarters, also have misunderstood the implications of changes in the supermarket industry over the last decade or so. Put succinctly, what were once small local chains have evolved into major corporations.
"Fifteen years ago, we were dealing with regional supermarkets," says Rick Icaza, president of Local 770 in Los Angeles. "Back then, this strike would not have taken place, and if it did take place, it wouldn't have lasted 30 days."
But the nationwide consolidation of the supermarket business didn't occur overnight; it has been going on for most of those 15 years, and by no means secretly.
The union has not adapted to meet the challenge. The upshot is that a group of regional bargaining units are overmatched by three nationwide chains, which can continue raking in profits around the country while their Southern California locations are bereft of shoppers. . . .
<http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden22jan22,1,3147978.column> *****
>Or did some supermarkets get to be union through the power of
>truckers, or of skilled workers that used to work in supermarkets,
>like butchers?
Just looking at the timeline of the strike, you can see that the UFCW didn't, or perhaps couldn't, do what it would take to win a better contract:
The grocery workers struck Vons and Pavilions stores on October 11, 2003 -- Albertson's and Ralphs lock out their workers the next day. On October 28, "[s]upermarket pharmacists, who are covered by a separate contract, stop honoring the picket lines and return to work" ("Supermarket Strike Timeline," Thursday, February 26, 2004, <http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204%257E24654%257E1981806,00.html>). Not until November 25 did "[t]he Teamsters truckers and warehouse workers agree to honor picket lines at the supermarkets' nine regional distribution centers" ("Supermarket Strike Timeline," Thursday, February 26, 2004, <http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204%257E24654%257E1981806,00.html>). On October 31, "[t]he UFCW announces that it will remove picket lines from Ralphs" ("Supermarket Strike Timeline," Thursday, February 26, 2004, <http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204%257E24654%257E1981806,00.html>).
Cf. ***** . . . The bad news was announced on October 24, when KABC, a Los Angeles TV station, reported, "Picketing was suspended today at two distribution centers 'to minimize' the financial impact on Teamsters who had been honoring picket lines in support of striking supermarket clerks, union officials said. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union removed its pickets from the two locations, which serve as warehouse/distribution centers for Vons and Albertson's, effective at 6 a.m., said union spokeswoman Barbara Maynard." Both the UFCW and the Teamsters had announced the picketing of the distribution centers just a week before with great fanfare.
More bad news came on November 1, when the UFCW announced it was withdrawing its pickets from Ralphs, which had locked out its union workers. The workers remain locked-out and are to be dispatched for picket duty at the other two chains, Vons (owned by Safeway) and Albertson's (own by American Foods). The removal of the pickets seemed predicated on taking advantage of the competitiveness of the chain stores.
However, it's a well-established practice for food employers to buttress their agreements to stand together with a legally binding pact that requires a breakaway chain to pay indemnification to those that stay and fight the unions. The Los Angeles Times reports that Safeway's boss "recently told supermarket industry analysts that the three chains had agreed to share the financial burden of the strike, though he did not provide details." It doesn't seem smart to think that the chain store bosses didn't take steps to protect their anti-worker united front from attempts by one chain to grab a competitive advantage from the two others.
The good news came when the strikers learned that the AFL-CIO had pledged to help fund their strike and further pledged to raise strike funds from its affiliated national unions. The labor federation said in a prepared statement, "These workers are not alone, and have the support of the entire union movement and our allies."
The hard-to-believe news came when the UFCW announced it might take the strike national. "The UFCW threatened to take the California strike national and set up pickets at Safeway stores across the country." Rick Icaza, president of UFCW Local 770 in Los Angeles, "noted that by pulling pickets at Ralphs, the union has 18,000 locked-out members who could be deployed to other stores in Southern California or to other parts of the country."
Although the extension of primary picket lines to Safeway stores would be legal, unions, in general, seldom take advantage of the solidarity of their entire membership by dispatching pickets from the primary struck area to the owner's businesses in other areas. The reason is simply that the national union officialdom doesn't want to hurt its working relations with out-of-the-struck-area companies and local unions. . . .
(Charles Walker, "What If Union Leaders Turned the Grocery Strike into an 'Alley Fight'?", <http://www.laborstandard.org/California_Grocery_Strike/groc_strike_alley_fight.htm>) ***** -- Yoshie
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