Supermarket Unions Face Tough Talks Soon

Two large unions and Southern California’s major supermarkets are issuing storm warnings as they prepare for contract negotiations that will deal with one of the most serious problems facing unions these days: How should workers react to demands for concessions from reasonably prosperous employers?

In the last few years, several major unions in the auto, steel and rubber industries have made significant concessions to help financially troubled employers. Such decisions usually came easily because they saved jobs.

But, having weathered recessions and restructurings, more companies that are now thriving financially are also seeking to cut wages or otherwise reduce labor costs to bolster profits.

Even in prosperous industries, workers seem less inclined to strike these days to prevent such cuts, while employers are more willing, and sometimes almost eager, to battle unions.

Nationwide, there were only 62 major strikes last year, fewer than at any other time since the federal government began keeping such records 37 years ago. However, the Southern California food industry and its unions have a long history of belligerence. In the last 25 years, there have been 12 industrywide strikes in this area, so it is not surprising that harsh words are already being exchanged even though contracts don’t expire until Sept. 8.

This time around, the unions will have to deal with the issue of whether they should strike to prevent a healthy industry from cutting labor costs. Food industry officials acknowledge that their profits are holding steady or rising. For example, Ralphs Grocery Co., a subsidiary of Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores, last year reported a healthy, near-record operating profit of $43.9 million.

But Ralphs and the rest of the major chains are adamant in their desire to reduce labor costs with the Teamsters Union, which represents about 12,000 workers, and the United Food and Commercial Workers, representing about 10,000 meat cutters. The unions, on the other hand, are pushing for gains--not concessions.

Jerry Vercruse, head of Teamsters Local 595 and a key union negotiator, said that “the problem is one of vindictiveness against workers by employers even though (most) companies are making good money these days. You could call it management greed.”

Joseph McLaughlin, who was named again last week to head the Food Employers Council, which represents the market chains, ridiculed Vercruse’s remarks, saying: “No company I represent is greedy. But also no company can afford to be complacent about any aspect of its business, including labor costs.”

Other issues coming up for negotiations could also lead to a strike.

For example, supermarkets have to pay Teamsters who drive trucks for “captive” dairies--those owned by the markets themselves--substantially more than independent, or “conventional” dairies, pay their Teamsters drivers for the same work. The supermarkets want that changed. The supermarket-owned dairies pay their drivers nearly $14 an hour, or about $1.81 an hour more than the independents, Vercruse acknowledged. But he contended that, “even with the pay differentials, the supermarket dairies are driving the independents out of business.

“The independents have to deliver small quantities to a large number of small stores while drivers for the ‘captives’ can take one huge load to a supermarket and don’t need salespeople to sell their products to their own stores,” he said.

William S. Brennan, a spokesman for the independent dairies, said that, 10 years ago, the “captives” and the independents had equal shares of the Southern California market. Today, he estimated, market-owned dairies have between 70% and 75% of the sales.

“The market-owned dairies don’t have to worry about credit of hundreds of small customers, a sales force or any of the other problems faced by the independents,” Brennan said.

That means, he argued, that the independents need workers’ help in holding down labor costs. But supermarket managers counter that it is unfair for unions to give a competitive edge to independent dairies or to any other companies in direct competition with the supermarkets, such as discount and drug stores.

Management has some crucial decisions of its own to make before this year’s talks, including who should be chief negotiator and which companies should be involved in the bargaining.

McLaughlin, who has been the industry’s attorney for the last 30 years, is almost certain to stay on as president of the Food Employers Council during the current negotiations. He was given the job last week after the resignation of John Quinn, who left after only six months to “pursue other business opportunities.”

Officials did not elaborate on the reason for the resignation, but some industry sources speculated that management wanted to present a tough stance toward the unions and that Quinn, as one executive put it, “just didn’t seem to present that image.”

Although McLaughlin is usually soft-spoken and generally trusted by union leaders, they can also expect him to be as hard-nosed as any of his predecessors. He has notified the unions that it is uncertain whether some companies will withdraw to negotiate their own, separate contracts. Some sources contend that a few markets want to bargain on their own so that they can reach agreements without trying to force concessions and thus avoid a strike.

Others speculate that the markets haven’t yet decided which ones will take part in the multi-employer bargaining for just the opposite reason: They are afraid that the Food Employers Council will not be hard-nosed enough in fighting the unions.

In the end, most of the supermarkets will probably continue their tradition of negotiating as a group. But that won’t go very far toward resolving the unions’ dilemma.

Labor Merit Badge

Despite the outrage voiced by the anti-union National Right to Work Committee and some corporate leaders, the Boy Scouts of America will have a union-oriented merit badge to help balance the badge created in 1967 for American business.

Scout executives said the American labor merit badge, which was proposed by the Scouts’ Labor Advisory Committee more than a year ago, has already been approved in principle by several key Scout committees. However, requirements for winning the badge have been a subject of debate, with the right-to-work group complaining that they are slanted too much toward unions. But, since the business merit badge is tilted toward the corporate point of view, there is an obvious need for balance.

The Scouts’ proposed labor merit badge asks candidates for the badge to, among other things, list the achievements of America’s unions, draw diagrams of a typical union structure and compare U.S. unions with those in another country.

Scouts who want to earn the labor badge are also asked to visit a union hall, gather information about union goals and problems from several sources and be prepared to answer questions on those topics and to explain words and phrases used in labor-management relations.

To earn the business merit badge, Scouts are expected to, among other things, explain the key features of the “free enterprise system” and describe its “benefits and responsibilities.” They are asked to tell how the laws of Scouting apply to business and free enterprise, visit a bank and talk with its officers, diagram its organization and its relationship with other banks and explain the place of profit in business.

They are also asked to select two or more stocks and keep a record of what would happen if they actually invested $1,000 in those stocks for three months. And they are asked to run a small business--selling products they make themselves or taking a newspaper route, for example--and then report on how “salesmanship, hard work and friendliness” helped their business.

Harold Sokolsky, administrative assistant to chief Scout executive Ben J. Love, said that some “moderate changes” are expected to be made in the requirements for the labor badge over the next few months and that it should then win formal approval--but not in time for it to be introduced at this year’s Jamboree, to be held July 24-30 in Fort Hill, Va.

“It is obvious to me that the business and labor merit badges each take the point of view of their subjects and should balance one another,” Sokolsky said.

Organized labor has fought for years, with little success, to get public schools to teach students about the role that unions have played in American history. The squabble over the Scout badge is an indication of the trouble that unions have had in trying to tell their story to youngsters.

“We (Scout leaders) don’t want to get caught in the middle of a fight between unions and their enemies,” Sokolsky said. “But my feeling is that the American labor movement has done a great deal for the welfare of this country and should be commended for its achievements.”

The proposed requirements for the labor badge were written by University of Minnesota Prof. John F. Flagler at the request of Scout executives.

Sokolsky noted that there were no objections from organized labor to the business badge requirements, and he insisted that the decision to modify the labor merit badge requirements was made before a “flood” of letters arrived at Scout headquarters in Irving, Tex., from supporters of the National Right to Work Committee.

“Support for Scouting includes both the labor and corporate community, and we want to take a closer look at the labor merit badge to make sure it represents our desire to appeal to our broad-based constituency,” he said.

The labor merit badge should help balance the information that Scouts get from business about America’s economic system and help Scouting keep its reputation for fair play.

Hitting the Jackpot

In the sort of “jackpot” win that one might expect, nearly 200 retirees from Las Vegas resort hotels and restaurants will divide about $2 million as a result of changes made in the Southern Nevada Culinary and Bartenders Pension Fund.

Irving Baldinger, senior vice president of the American Benefit Plan Administrators, said union and management trustees of the fund, which covers about 30,000 workers, voted in 1982 to make major improvements in the workers’ benefits and eligibility requirements and make them retroactive to 1971, when the plan was started.

Since that decision, a check was made of 1,200 applicants for benefits who had previously been declared ineligible but are now entitled to benefits. It took more than two years to verify the eligibility of retired workers and then locate the widely scattered “missing” pensioners, Baldinger said.