Gephardt Joins Pickets in Show of Worker Support

Democratic presidential candidate Richard A. Gephardt joined striking grocery workers on a West Hollywood picket line Wednesday, calling them heroes who were making sacrifices to protect their families’ rights.

“These folks have been out here for two months, fighting for health care for their families,” Rep. Gephardt, of Missouri, said. “I believe that what they’re fighting for is a moral issue.”

Workers struck Safeway Inc.’s Vons and Pavilions stores Oct. 11 after talks on a new contract broke down, largely over the issue of employee contributions to health insurance. Albertsons Inc. and Kroger Co.’s Ralphs, which bargain jointly with Safeway, locked out their workers the next day. The labor dispute affects 70,000 union workers in Southern and Central California.

Gephardt told more than 100 cheering pickets that his health-care plan would level the playing field between the major grocery chains and nonunion rivals such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. by combining mandatory health insurance requirements with refundable tax credits for employers.

“My plan will help not only companies like this but also would help people who work for companies that haven’t given their people health insurance,” Gephardt said.

Martha Ortega, an assistant manager at the Ralphs near the Beverly Center mall, said she hoped Gephardt’s visit would help give the contract talks “a push” toward resolution.

“We’re getting by, barely,” she said. “I can’t sleep. I’m getting sick of being out here. I want to go back to work.”

Contract talks continued Wednesday with federal mediator Peter J. Hurtgen and were scheduled to resume today. Hurtgen wants to “keep them talking as long as he can,” said John Arnold, a spokesman for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

At Hurtgen’s request, both sides are declining to comment on the talks.

The labor dispute escalated last week, when the Teamsters union announced that it would honor United Food and Commercial Workers’ picket lines at warehouses, further disrupting the supply chain to stores.

Ralphs subsequently complained that pickets were blocking access to a Riverside warehouse, and a Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order last week to limit pickets there.

That order expired Monday. On Tuesday, a different Superior Court judge said the original request was “without merit,” according to the UFCW, and ordered the chain to pay $1,500 to cover the union’s legal fees.

A Ralphs spokesman confirmed the company had been ordered to pay the fees and said there were no plans to challenge that decision or to renew the restraining order.

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On February 12, 2004 the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which had stated repeatedly that 70,000 workers were involved in the supermarket labor dispute in Central and Southern California, said that the number of people on strike or locked out was actually 59,000. A union spokeswoman, Barbara Maynard, said that 70,000 UFCW members were, in fact, covered by the labor contract with supermarkets that expired last year. But 11,000 of them worked for Stater Bros. Holdings Inc., Arden Group Inc.’s Gelson’s and other regional grocery companies and were still on the job. (See: “UFCW Revises Number of Workers in Labor Dispute,” Los Angeles Times, February 13, 2004, Business C-11)

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