Solidarity: March to Support Southern Cal Grocery Workers

For more info about this action contact the Alameda Labor Council at 510-632-4242
or email them at mail [at] alamedalabor.org

Am boycotting Safeway AND Albertson's here in Washington State. I challenge ALL shoppers to avoid these stores and spread the word WHY you are...
The Union-Busting BushCo has to be stopped. This isn't about grocery store efforts to be competitive...it's a spreading poison across America to do away with the middle class and widen the gap between the "haves" and "have nots". We are being robbed blind in broad daylight...so, whatever you have to do, do it! Meanwhile, the corporate whores get tax breaks and offshore, tax-free safety nets for America's money. Oh, well, you CAN get a job, if you don't mind moving to Malaysia or India.

I tried to post what is below some twelve hours ago, but it didn't get through for some reason. So I'm trying again now.

The grocery store strike is indeed a major issue. What the grocery chains are trying to do is, in effect, eliminate health care as part of the package in their contract. (This would be done by simply making it unaffordable.) If they accomplish this, it would be a new precedent: One of the first major union contracts without affordable health care. All workers are facting this threat. We will all be directly affected by the outcome of this struggle. (My own fellow workers - carpenters - are facting attacks on our health care package also.)

It is exactly for this reason that I am so concerned with the approach of the union leadership. It is the same safe approach that they have used in one strike after another. Hormel, P-9, etc. etc. In every single case, they were unable to prevent concessions.

I think that we need to return to the traditions of the 30s. This includes use of mass pickets and work-place occupations. Remember the sit-ins of the civil rights movement? What is wrong with having shop-ins now?

Another point: If the labor movement were to seriously organize things, there is no doubt it could organize a one day shut down of the entire country. Now THAT would really put the employers on notice and stir things up in the movement!

Mass community support is just out there waiting to be organized. It is up to the unions and their leadership to do so. In the meantime, I think we need a rank-and-file based solidarity committee.

John Reimann
expelled member, Carpenters Local 713

<<It is up to the unions and their leadership to do so.>>

relying on the union leadership to mobilize actions like those you propose would be a huge mistake.

shit, the ILWU, "the most progressive and democratic union"--or so we're told--just endorsed newscum for mayor.

it's way passed time that class war militants put ANY faith in the union bureaucraps.