Latest Supermarkets Strike Has New Twist

The latest strike-lockout at Southern California supermarkets is significantly different from others in recent decades: This time, the battle is over the relatively prosperous industry’s demands for major concessions from its workers, not over the unions’ usual demands for improved wages and fringe benefits.

And there might be another difference: In the past, members of the various unions in the industry almost always crossed each other’s picket lines. And, although on the first day of the strike some clerks did cross picket lines at some Vons stores, this time there is a chance that a substantial number of non-striking retail clerks will not cross the lines set up by striking meat cutters and Teamsters as the lockout accelerates.

This could happen because the clerks’ union leaders are warning their members that, if the strike fails, the clerks may well face the prospect of suffering the same contract losses that the meat cutters and Teamsters are striking to avoid.

One aspect that never seems to change, however, is the traditional way in which both management and the unions conduct contract negotiations.

For instance, both sides continued their “crisis bargaining” postures, negotiating with one another in marathon talks until the moment the contract expired--the point of crisis. Each side hoped the other would weaken hours--or even minutes--before the deadline and make concessions to avoid a strike or lockout.

In most “crisis bargaining” relationships, each side bitterly denounces the other for its intransigence--and that unpleasant tradition, too, was maintained again this year in the strike-lockout that involves nearly 22,000 meat cutters and Teamsters employed in 1,125 supermarkets that serve an estimated 12 million consumers.

Other industries these days are trying, and often succeeding, in developing a more rational, ongoing, cooperative relationship that, in effect, affords unions and management the opportunity to solve problems as they arise over a period of years instead of waiting to solve them under the pressure of a deadline. These companies discuss frankly and openly the economic conditions of the companies and the needs of the workers. That isn’t done in the supermarket industry.

A tactic that has been used for decades in supermarket negotiations is management’s recruitment of strikebreakers weeks in advance of the strike deadline--a tactic that is costly to the markets if there is a settlement and the strikebreakers are not actually hired. This tends to encourage management to resist compromises and allow the companies to test their ability to break the strike. And it also serves to worry union workers who see the non-union workers lining up to take the jobs of those who do strike.

And both management and unions again this year maintained the tradition of exchanging contract demands that they were certain the other side would reject, although there was no doubt that the unions really wanted only to keep their past gains in wages and fringe benefits.

Unlike past negotiations, however, this time it was management’s demands for contract concessions from workers that were the prime cause of the strike-lockout.

Such demands are not new in economically depressed industries. But what is unusual is that the management in a relatively healthy industry--supermarkets--is demanding that workers give up wages, benefits and job conditions.

Another twist to the strike-lockout is the fact that the supermarket workers last week received some indirect support from President Reagan’s newly appointed secretary of labor, William E. Brock III. Such an endorsement may seem unlikely to those who, with considerable justification, view the Reagan Administration as anti-union.

Brock told the AFL-CIO convention in Anaheim that he deplores corporate strategies of “ruthlessly cutting labor costs . . . in a number of subtle and not-so-subtle ways, like out-sourcing (shifting work from unionized workplaces) to low-wage, non-union work sites.” One of the supermarkets’ demands is for a contract provision that allows out-sourcing.

Brock also cautioned against use of the two-tier wage system, which means that, for the same job, newly hired workers are paid lower wages than those already employed. The supermarkets want to do just that. For instance, they want to pay newly hired “meat cutter-clerks” only $7 an hour, compared to the $13.48 that journeymen meat cutters now earn.

Brock said that the two-tier wage system may work for a short time but that it is “not sustainable on a long-term basis” because of the friction it creates between workers earning significantly different rates of pay for doing the same job.

Supermarket industry officials say the concessions they are demanding from the union workers are necessary to keep them competitive with non-union companies and unionized discount stores. While not addressing the supermarket dispute directly, Brock generalized in support of the employees by warning employers that it would be “stupid” for them to try and improve their competitive position “by reducing the standard of living now enjoyed by American workers and their families.”

That advice--especially coming from a leading member of an Administration that usually sides with management--is at least as non-traditional as the fact that the current strike-lockout stems from concession demands from a relatively prosperous industry.

Brock, Unions Agree

Despite the wide differences between organized labor and Labor Secretary Brock over foreign imports, Brock and the unions are in agreement on a variety of other issues, particularly the need to make the Labor Department an active, working agency of the federal government again.

During much of the 44 months that former Secretary Raymond J. Donovan was in charge, the department was severly handicapped by lengthy investigations of Donovan’s alleged illegal activities. Despite heavy pressure from many top Reagan Administration officials, Donovan refused to resign until he was finally ordered to stand trial on criminal charges of grand larceny and fraud.

While Donovan was in office, he did carry out President Reagan’s philosophy by cutting the department’s budget by nearly a third and reducing enforcement of health and safety and other labor laws. And he was in frequent battles with most leaders of organized labor when he wasn’t preoccupied with his legal problems.

In sharp contrast to that administration, Brock has good relations with unions, supports many of their goals and is moving to revitalize the agency that many observers said had been paralyzed during much of Donovan’s tenure.

In an interview last week, Brock said he has almost completed reorganization of the agency’s staff, and, while he has not yet worked out a complete agenda for the department, he said the agency is already functioning reasonably well. But, like many public figures, Brock has drawn fire from both sides of the political spectrum.

From the conservatives, he has been criticized because of his appointment of liberal former United Auto Workers attorney Steve Schlossberg as an assistant secretary of labor.

From the liberals, he has been criticized for not acting more promptly to require growers to provide sanitation facilities in the field for farm workers. Nevertheless, he is moving in that direction, and he noted that, for more than a decade under previous Democratic and Republican administrations, no action at all was taken by the Labor Department on the issue.

But he is strongly loyal to President Reagan, and, while he indicated that he will fight within the Administration for a somewhat more liberal policy toward labor, he is clearly not going to challenge the President on any significant issue, such as requests from the AFL-CIO that he help them fight to restore the department’s budget.

Several union leaders at the AFL-CIO convention last week worried that Brock’s appointment may be no more than a diversionary tactic by the Administration designed to soften labor’s unrelenting criticism of the President.

But, even if that is true, the country does again have a functioning labor department and someone in charge who is at least willing to listen, and even seek out, divergent points of view before making decisions that affect millions of American workers and their unions.

Free Co-Op Seminars

Cooperatives and worker-owned and managed businesses are not new concepts, but their numbers are increasing slowly.

To stimulate their growth, Mayor Tom Bradley, joined by other government agencies and private organizations, have started a series of free public seminars about them at City Hall.

“A number of studies indicate that productivity can be as much as 30% higher in employee-owned businesses than in conventional companies,” according to Lois Arkin, executive director of the Cooperative Resources and Services Project, a nonprofit, private organization.

Experts in the creation of co-ops and worker-owned companies attend the seminars to answer questions and to “expand public awareness of the ideas,” Arkin said.

At the most recent seminar, project attorney David Gurnick said participants discussed the idea of privately owned small businesses forming their own co-ops “that are ideal for shopping centers, industrial parks and even for geographically dispersed businesses with the same or similar product and service lines.”

The seminars, along with more direct advice and assistance, are offered jointly by the project, Bradley’s office and the state Department of Consumer Affairs.

The government agencies and the Cooperative Resources project help companies and groups of individuals make “feasibility studies” for worker-owned businesses and cooperatives. In addition, they provide other services, such as a speakers’ bureau--with names of attorneys, accountants, educators and others who are experts in such operations. They also offer classes teaching subjects ranging from the history of co-ops to techniques for creating co-op projects for housing, food or even baby-sitting.