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Statement of UFCW Int'l President Doug Dority On The Southern California Strike
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 27, 2004
February 27, 2004
Today, I am pleased to join with the officers of the seven Southern California UFCW local unions in their announcement of a tentative agreement in the longest major strike in the history of the UFCW, the largest and longest strike in the history of the supermarket industry, and the first major strike of the 21st century.
It is also one of the most successful strikes in history.
After five months, the picket lines remain strong, our members remain united, and customers continue to honor the workers’ picket lines costing the supermarket conglomerates billions of dollars in revenue.
Every day, support for the fight for affordable health care grows stronger. Community and religious leaders have put their bodies on the line in acts of civil disobedience. There have been scores of arrests from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay area to Baltimore, Maryland. There are daily rallies, demonstrations, picket lines and handbilling from Seattle and Portland to Washington, DC. The Southern California supermarket strike has become a national cause.
The men and women on the picket lines are genuine heroes. Their sacrifice for affordable family health care has motivated and activated workers across the nation. I am honored to be part of their union, and I am humbled as well as inspired by their dedication, strength and selflessness.
These members will never be forgotten. They will always be honored and respected. We owe them a debt of gratitude. They have sent a message to employers everywhere that attempts to eliminate health care benefits will come at a high price. Workers will not sit idle as their families are denied health care protection. Workers will stand united and fight for health care.
In Southern California, workers were given no choice but to fight. UFCW members have never faced, nor has nay UFCW-represented employer ever made a more extreme or drastic demand—a demand that would have effectively eliminated affordable health care benefits, as did the supermarket employers in Southern California. The UFCW, its local unions and its members rose to the challenge. The employers never believed that workers could sustain a five-month strike. The employers completely underestimated the determination and fortitude of their employees.
Through their struggle, the striking and locked out workers have performed a service for the whole country. They have sounded the alarm for all of America—your health care benefits at work are at risk. If the supermarket giants—profitable, growing Fortune 50 mega-corporations—can launch an attack on health care benefits, then every employer is sure to follow. They have sounded the alarm that the American health care system is ready to collapse.
In one year, over 2 million lost health insurance. That’s over 6,000 workers a day.
The fight here has given us a national call to action.
We must have national health care reform. No one company, no one union, no industry or group of workers alone can fix the health care system. We can patch it up. We can protect our members for another contract term, but the system continues to falter, exacting an increasing cost on both workers and employers and leaving more and more families without health care.
Now is the time for action. 2004 is the year to put health care reform on the political agenda and demand that every candidate for office commits to comprehensive, affordable health insurance for every working family.
No worker should ever again be forced to choose between a paycheck and health care benefits. No worker should ever again be forced into the streets for five months to protect health care for their families.
The UFCW will lead the fight for health care reform. And, I believe, with members like our Southern California members—the UFCW will win that fight.
http://www.ufcw.org/press_room/index.cfm?pressReleaseID=82
It is also one of the most successful strikes in history.
After five months, the picket lines remain strong, our members remain united, and customers continue to honor the workers’ picket lines costing the supermarket conglomerates billions of dollars in revenue.
Every day, support for the fight for affordable health care grows stronger. Community and religious leaders have put their bodies on the line in acts of civil disobedience. There have been scores of arrests from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay area to Baltimore, Maryland. There are daily rallies, demonstrations, picket lines and handbilling from Seattle and Portland to Washington, DC. The Southern California supermarket strike has become a national cause.
The men and women on the picket lines are genuine heroes. Their sacrifice for affordable family health care has motivated and activated workers across the nation. I am honored to be part of their union, and I am humbled as well as inspired by their dedication, strength and selflessness.
These members will never be forgotten. They will always be honored and respected. We owe them a debt of gratitude. They have sent a message to employers everywhere that attempts to eliminate health care benefits will come at a high price. Workers will not sit idle as their families are denied health care protection. Workers will stand united and fight for health care.
In Southern California, workers were given no choice but to fight. UFCW members have never faced, nor has nay UFCW-represented employer ever made a more extreme or drastic demand—a demand that would have effectively eliminated affordable health care benefits, as did the supermarket employers in Southern California. The UFCW, its local unions and its members rose to the challenge. The employers never believed that workers could sustain a five-month strike. The employers completely underestimated the determination and fortitude of their employees.
Through their struggle, the striking and locked out workers have performed a service for the whole country. They have sounded the alarm for all of America—your health care benefits at work are at risk. If the supermarket giants—profitable, growing Fortune 50 mega-corporations—can launch an attack on health care benefits, then every employer is sure to follow. They have sounded the alarm that the American health care system is ready to collapse.
In one year, over 2 million lost health insurance. That’s over 6,000 workers a day.
The fight here has given us a national call to action.
We must have national health care reform. No one company, no one union, no industry or group of workers alone can fix the health care system. We can patch it up. We can protect our members for another contract term, but the system continues to falter, exacting an increasing cost on both workers and employers and leaving more and more families without health care.
Now is the time for action. 2004 is the year to put health care reform on the political agenda and demand that every candidate for office commits to comprehensive, affordable health insurance for every working family.
No worker should ever again be forced to choose between a paycheck and health care benefits. No worker should ever again be forced into the streets for five months to protect health care for their families.
The UFCW will lead the fight for health care reform. And, I believe, with members like our Southern California members—the UFCW will win that fight.
http://www.ufcw.org/press_room/index.cfm?pressReleaseID=82
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Southern California's three largest grocery chains and the union representing 59,000 striking or locked-out clerks reached a tentative agreement Thursday night, setting the stage for a weekend ratification vote to end the nation's longest supermarket strike.
The strike and walkout that lasted 139 days has hit workers hard, with lost wages estimated at $300 million, and cost Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons an estimated $2 billion in sales.
Details of the settlement were not released but company sources indicated it contained basic elements the supermarkets sought from the outset, including a two-tier wage system for new employees and employee contributions to the cost of health insurance.
Union sources contended they made sure health benefits remained affordable and protected pensions.
"The best way to characterize this is that nobody won in this whole thing -- everybody lost," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.
The breakthrough came after 16 consecutive days -- and often nights -- of talks at the Hyatt Newporter in Newport Beach where the nation's head mediator, Peter J. Hurtgen, met with negotiators for the United Food and Commercial Workers and the supermarket chains.
Union members will vote Saturday and Sunday whether to ratify the contract. But even if it's approved, they are not expected to return to their jobs until later next week.
"The union leadership wants to tell workers face to face the details of the tentative agreement and give them the opportunity to accept it or reject it," said Rick Icaza, president of UFCW Local 770.
Union leaders want to keep picket lines intact until the contract is ratified, but morale appeared to be low with a deal imminent.
Sources close to the companies said the union has made significant concessions, including accepting a two-tier wage system and agreeing to pay a share of health insurance costs, which were previously entirely covered.
"The final contract isn't too different from what they saw at the beginning. Nobody knew it would go this way ... It's a real human tragedy," one company source said.
Union sources insisted that the settlement accomplished the UFCW's primary goals -- to maintain affordable health care and salvage pension benefits. The two-tier wage structure, sources said, was something the union was more willing to concede.
Workers will also not see any effect in their take-home pay, but would have under the initial proposal, sources said.
The strike, which began Oct. 11, has worn down thousands of grocery clerks and taken millions of consumers on a wild ride.
On Oct. 5, 97 percent of the employees voted to strike, and after a failed federal intervention, Vons and Pavilions workers walked out. Union leaders said Steve Burd -- the chief executive of Vons' parent company Safeway Inc. -- was the "ringleader" of the chains.
Hours later, Ralphs and Albertsons locked out their employees, pledging to stand firm with Vons. That day, an estimated 59,000 workers took to the picket lines and choked almost all of the business out of 850 stores from San Diego to Bakersfield.
As the labor battle waged on, and its magnitude became apparent, both sides dug in deeper.
Supermarket executives characterized the dispute as an "investment" in their companies' future as stores such as Wal-Mart moved into the grocery industry and created more intense competition. Wal-Mart plans to bring 40 Supercenters to Southern California in the next five years.
"The issue that has emerged is not only health care, but Wal-Mart-style practices -- a drive for the bottom in terms of labor costs, wages and benefits," said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education.
Labor leaders framed it as a fight for medical benefits that transcended industry boundaries, and began toting signs that read, "Hold the Line for Health Care."
"There's a real concern that there will be more attempts in the private sector to roll back health care coverage for workers," Wong said.
Unions from across the country soon pronounced support for the Southern California UFCW workers and pledged millions of dollars to help subsidize the labor action. At a Dec. 16 summit in Century City, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the strike must be taken national.
"We cannot and we will not lose this ... This is a national fight," Sweeney told thousands of picket-wielding supporters.
However, the supermarket chains held firm, partially due to a partnership they agreed to before the strike began. The three chains -- usually arch competitors -- decided to share profits and losses for the duration of the labor dispute.
The agreement proved effective after the UFCW pulled picket lines away from Ralphs stores Oct. 31 in an effort to give shoppers an option and focus the impact of the strike on the other two chains. That plan backfired due to the supermarkets' pact, which has since become subject to an antitrust investigation by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
The union's efforts -- sometimes ill-planned and disorganized, but generally effective at keeping shoppers out of stores -- never seemed to faze the determined company executives, who are estimated to have lost as much as $1.5 billion in sales.
"These are national companies facing increasing competition from Wal-Mart ... They're looking at that and saying, We've got to get our cost structure in order," said Kyser, the county economist.
"The unions did not do a strategic assessment of the situation and the resolve of the markets totally caught them off guard."
The strike was by far the longest and largest in the history of the nation's grocery industry, and will set a precedent for similar battles across the country in coming months. Supermarket union contracts in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Seattle and Northern California will expire within the next six months, and more strikes could follow.
Locally, workers might never recover from the financial hardship and the supermarket chains are not expected to win back the 60 percent regional market share they enjoyed prior to the strike because shoppers were pushed to alternative stores like Trader Joe's, Costco, Whole Foods and Smart & Final.
But the strike's effects reach much farther than the local economy and set a precedent for cutting union health care costs across the country, according to labor experts.
"Whatever they do here will affect settlements throughout the country," said Daniel Mitchell, a professor of management and policy studies at UCLA's Anderson School.
Presidential candidate John Kerry made a campaign stop at a Santa Monica Vons on Thursday and said the grocery workers' plight will be a significant issue in this year's election.
"I honor these hard-working men and women for taking a stand, on behalf of workers everywhere, in the fight for national health care reform," Kerry said. "George Bush has done nothing to help ordinary Americans struggling for health coverage."
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~1982423,00.html
The strike and walkout that lasted 139 days has hit workers hard, with lost wages estimated at $300 million, and cost Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons an estimated $2 billion in sales.
Details of the settlement were not released but company sources indicated it contained basic elements the supermarkets sought from the outset, including a two-tier wage system for new employees and employee contributions to the cost of health insurance.
Union sources contended they made sure health benefits remained affordable and protected pensions.
"The best way to characterize this is that nobody won in this whole thing -- everybody lost," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.
The breakthrough came after 16 consecutive days -- and often nights -- of talks at the Hyatt Newporter in Newport Beach where the nation's head mediator, Peter J. Hurtgen, met with negotiators for the United Food and Commercial Workers and the supermarket chains.
Union members will vote Saturday and Sunday whether to ratify the contract. But even if it's approved, they are not expected to return to their jobs until later next week.
"The union leadership wants to tell workers face to face the details of the tentative agreement and give them the opportunity to accept it or reject it," said Rick Icaza, president of UFCW Local 770.
Union leaders want to keep picket lines intact until the contract is ratified, but morale appeared to be low with a deal imminent.
Sources close to the companies said the union has made significant concessions, including accepting a two-tier wage system and agreeing to pay a share of health insurance costs, which were previously entirely covered.
"The final contract isn't too different from what they saw at the beginning. Nobody knew it would go this way ... It's a real human tragedy," one company source said.
Union sources insisted that the settlement accomplished the UFCW's primary goals -- to maintain affordable health care and salvage pension benefits. The two-tier wage structure, sources said, was something the union was more willing to concede.
Workers will also not see any effect in their take-home pay, but would have under the initial proposal, sources said.
The strike, which began Oct. 11, has worn down thousands of grocery clerks and taken millions of consumers on a wild ride.
On Oct. 5, 97 percent of the employees voted to strike, and after a failed federal intervention, Vons and Pavilions workers walked out. Union leaders said Steve Burd -- the chief executive of Vons' parent company Safeway Inc. -- was the "ringleader" of the chains.
Hours later, Ralphs and Albertsons locked out their employees, pledging to stand firm with Vons. That day, an estimated 59,000 workers took to the picket lines and choked almost all of the business out of 850 stores from San Diego to Bakersfield.
As the labor battle waged on, and its magnitude became apparent, both sides dug in deeper.
Supermarket executives characterized the dispute as an "investment" in their companies' future as stores such as Wal-Mart moved into the grocery industry and created more intense competition. Wal-Mart plans to bring 40 Supercenters to Southern California in the next five years.
"The issue that has emerged is not only health care, but Wal-Mart-style practices -- a drive for the bottom in terms of labor costs, wages and benefits," said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education.
Labor leaders framed it as a fight for medical benefits that transcended industry boundaries, and began toting signs that read, "Hold the Line for Health Care."
"There's a real concern that there will be more attempts in the private sector to roll back health care coverage for workers," Wong said.
Unions from across the country soon pronounced support for the Southern California UFCW workers and pledged millions of dollars to help subsidize the labor action. At a Dec. 16 summit in Century City, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the strike must be taken national.
"We cannot and we will not lose this ... This is a national fight," Sweeney told thousands of picket-wielding supporters.
However, the supermarket chains held firm, partially due to a partnership they agreed to before the strike began. The three chains -- usually arch competitors -- decided to share profits and losses for the duration of the labor dispute.
The agreement proved effective after the UFCW pulled picket lines away from Ralphs stores Oct. 31 in an effort to give shoppers an option and focus the impact of the strike on the other two chains. That plan backfired due to the supermarkets' pact, which has since become subject to an antitrust investigation by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.
The union's efforts -- sometimes ill-planned and disorganized, but generally effective at keeping shoppers out of stores -- never seemed to faze the determined company executives, who are estimated to have lost as much as $1.5 billion in sales.
"These are national companies facing increasing competition from Wal-Mart ... They're looking at that and saying, We've got to get our cost structure in order," said Kyser, the county economist.
"The unions did not do a strategic assessment of the situation and the resolve of the markets totally caught them off guard."
The strike was by far the longest and largest in the history of the nation's grocery industry, and will set a precedent for similar battles across the country in coming months. Supermarket union contracts in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Seattle and Northern California will expire within the next six months, and more strikes could follow.
Locally, workers might never recover from the financial hardship and the supermarket chains are not expected to win back the 60 percent regional market share they enjoyed prior to the strike because shoppers were pushed to alternative stores like Trader Joe's, Costco, Whole Foods and Smart & Final.
But the strike's effects reach much farther than the local economy and set a precedent for cutting union health care costs across the country, according to labor experts.
"Whatever they do here will affect settlements throughout the country," said Daniel Mitchell, a professor of management and policy studies at UCLA's Anderson School.
Presidential candidate John Kerry made a campaign stop at a Santa Monica Vons on Thursday and said the grocery workers' plight will be a significant issue in this year's election.
"I honor these hard-working men and women for taking a stand, on behalf of workers everywhere, in the fight for national health care reform," Kerry said. "George Bush has done nothing to help ordinary Americans struggling for health coverage."
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~1982423,00.html
Bullshit. The union had no plan. The AFL/CIO went through the motions. Stay tuned, as UFCW member get fucked in the NW US by tired bureacrats.
P-9 load and proud. Fuck you, assholes.
P-9 load and proud. Fuck you, assholes.
Bullshit. The union had no plan. The AFL/CIO went through the motions. Stay tuned, as UFCW member get fucked in the NW US by tired bureacrats.
P-9 load and proud. Fuck you, assholes.
P-9 load and proud. Fuck you, assholes.
The UFCW leadership are traitors to the workers. Their pathetic ineptitude (obviously purposeful), the slashing strike benefits and removing picket lines from Ralphs and distribution centers, and AFL-CIO's bullshit regarding nationalizing the strike followed by inaction, was utterly shameful. Its time workers left these traitorous organizations and formed unions which actually acted in the class interests of their workers, and not as a mechanism for channeling the wokers' rage into meaningless and impotent activities meant to break their spirit and condition them for surrender in the face of capitalist attack.
Solidarity with striking and locked-out grocery workers – For a Class Union
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/italian.left/CommLeft/CL19.tm#Grocery
Solidarity with striking and locked-out grocery workers – For a Class Union
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/italian.left/CommLeft/CL19.tm#Grocery
knew this would happen......everyone has to pay for health care..why shouldn't you be expected to do the same
Many employers including mine pay ALL of the medical coverage. This is true in the private sector as well as the public sector. After all, medical coverage is a tax write-off.
In the rest of the industrialized world, healthcare is paid with the progressive income tax, known as tax the rich, guaranteeing medical care to all from cradle to grave. It is not tied to employment at all. In Germany, the workers won that achievement in the 1870s under Bismarck, along with Social Security and unemployment insurance. In the US, labor won Social Security and unemployment insurance in 1935, as a result of the 1934 general strikes in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Toledo. Here we are in the 21st Century, and still, the American workingclass has no guaranteed medical coverage for all paid for with the income tax. We are, however, number 1 in the world in paying for the military to guarantee oppression of the workingclass of the world so as to maximize the profits of the capitalist class.
It is long overdue that these labor lieutenants of capitalism and their stinking Democratic Party, the twin capitalist party of the Republican Party, be kicked out of the workingclass organizations. There can be no advance with either the Democrats or their promoters, the $200,000 per year bureaucrats claiming to represent the workingclass. Labor union officials should make the same salary as the workers they represent and no party supporting capitalism in any way should be given any voice in any labor organization. Only then will we see decent labor contracts.
In the rest of the industrialized world, healthcare is paid with the progressive income tax, known as tax the rich, guaranteeing medical care to all from cradle to grave. It is not tied to employment at all. In Germany, the workers won that achievement in the 1870s under Bismarck, along with Social Security and unemployment insurance. In the US, labor won Social Security and unemployment insurance in 1935, as a result of the 1934 general strikes in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Toledo. Here we are in the 21st Century, and still, the American workingclass has no guaranteed medical coverage for all paid for with the income tax. We are, however, number 1 in the world in paying for the military to guarantee oppression of the workingclass of the world so as to maximize the profits of the capitalist class.
It is long overdue that these labor lieutenants of capitalism and their stinking Democratic Party, the twin capitalist party of the Republican Party, be kicked out of the workingclass organizations. There can be no advance with either the Democrats or their promoters, the $200,000 per year bureaucrats claiming to represent the workingclass. Labor union officials should make the same salary as the workers they represent and no party supporting capitalism in any way should be given any voice in any labor organization. Only then will we see decent labor contracts.
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