Workers bracing for a strike
As the picket signs were being packed away three years ago, Georgene Haubenreisser urged the relatives she had helped steer into supermarket careers to get out of the business.
Haubenreisser herself planned to hang on until she could retire, having already put in 24 years. The matriarch of a family with 10 members who had staked out careers in Ralphs supermarket aisles, she became disillusioned with the grocery industry after the hardships of a 141-day labor dispute that ended in February 2004.
With more strife on the horizon, the Santa Clarita resident is still in debt from the last fight. But she said she would be willing to take another turn on the picket line to protect her wages and benefits, though she probably would have to put her home up for sale.
Her union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and the Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons chains have been unable to agree on a new three-year contract, leaving clerks and customers to brace for another battle.
“I thought I’d never have to go through this again,” said Haubenreisser, now 60 and three years short of the 30 years she wants to put in before retirement. “Unfortunately, I would have to support another strike if it came to that. I can’t afford to lose any more salary and benefits -- and we need to try to get some of what we lost back.”
The 2003-04 strike and lockout in Southern California cost the grocery chains as much as $2 billion, permanently drove away some customers and left thousands of workers with debts that they are still trying to pay off. The contract that ended the dispute required union members to make numerous wage and benefit concessions and led to the creation of a second tier of workers with lower pay and benefits.
That contract expired March 5, but has been extended twice, and the two sides have been sending signals that raise uncomfortable memories of the last impasse.
Union members have authorized a strike against Albertsons, although a date hasn’t been set and no such votes have been scheduled involving Ralphs and Vons. The supermarkets and the union are to resume contract talks Monday. Last Wednesday, the union walked out of negotiations because the chains declared they would lock out union workers if any of the companies was struck. The mutual-aid agreement, similar to one drafted before the last battle, also calls for the chains to provide financial assistance to companies struck by the union.
On Monday, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor said its 845,000 members would honor picket lines if the grocery workers go on strike or are locked out.
“Workers throughout Los Angeles County have made a commitment today, to stand in solidarity with our grocery workers in their fight to make their jobs good, middle-class jobs again,” said Maria Elena Durazo, the labor federation’s executive secretary-treasurer.
The agreement commits the federation to various kinds of assistance, including monetary help, walking the picket lines and gathering public and political support.
The three chains issued a statement calling the federation’s decision “a standard occurrence after a strike authorization vote” that would “have no impact on our continued commitment to the negotiation process and to achieving a peaceful contract settlement.”
In the meantime, workers and shoppers are preparing for the worst.
“I didn’t think it was going to happen at first, but they have shown us that they think we are easily replaced, so I am expecting a lockout or a strike,” said Erika Salas, a 29-year-old bookkeeper at a Vons in Torrance. Last time around, Salas worked on the union’s hardship committee, helping to decide which members would get help with their rent, mortgages and other items. “I can’t afford another strike, no question about that,” Salas said. “I’ll probably have to get another job.”
Sharlette Villacorta, a 13-year veteran clerk who manages the deli at an Albertsons in Los Feliz, is paying off the loan she used to stay current on her mortgage, car payments and credit card bills in 2003-04.
“We signed the contract then because we couldn’t have taken another day without work,” said the 35-year-old mother of four young boys. “This time we thought the chains would be willing to get rid of the two-tier system.”
Under the two-tier system, new hires must wait at least 12 months, sometimes longer, to become eligible for health insurance. The waiting period for family coverage is 30 months. The 65,000-member workforce is split almost evenly between those two groups.
But the two groups also are unequal in other ways, said Bruce Blackstone, 49, a 28-year veteran clerk and dairy manager at an Albertsons in Palmdale. Blackstone went through $10,000 in savings during the strike and lockout, forcing him to back out of a deal to buy a house. He is slowly building his way back, he said, but is tired of constantly covering for second-tier workers who give up on the lower wages and the long wait for benefits and quit.
“They affect the whole store. Everything gets backed up. Sometimes it’s every single day someone is missing. There are a lot of sick calls. And sometimes they are gone forever,” said Blackstone, who said he was prepared to hoist a picket sign again if it came to that.
Some shoppers said they had developed new shopping patterns during the strike and were still buying less at the chains than they had before the labor fight.
Venice resident and television producer Jonathan Frank, 31, said that he and his wife began buying higher-priced food at a Whole Foods in Brentwood after pickets appeared at his Albertsons in Santa Monica. Now, Frank said the couple still pays those higher prices because the more expensive Whole Foods selection is better for their health. And if the pickets return, he won’t shop at Albertsons at all until they leave.
“I just didn’t want the hassle of crossing a picket line,” Frank said.
But computer technician Baltazar Ayala, 31, said prices would dictate his behavior. With a fifth child on the way, Ayala said he would chase bargains. “If I was a rich guy, I might drive 10 extra miles to go somewhere else and avoid a picket line,” Ayala said. “I’m not rich.”
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