Settle the Strike

As a member of that harassed public which rushes through the supermarket and stands in line to spend hundreds of dollars each month, I protest the refusal of management to pay attention to the needs of its personnel and put an end to the strike.

The media tells me that the striking butchers and truck drivers cannot get a response from management, which responds that the unions refuse to deal with them or tell them what they want.

In all the time I have dealt with Vons, I have had remarkable courtesy and service from butchers, clerks, check-out girls and busboys. Vons conducted a research questionnaire to which I responded that there were too few employees to handle check-out, packing and loading groceries. They thanked me but did nothing.

Now the butchers say that they are threatened with lower salaries and part-time jobs, with lower paid “clerks” doing their work. These people are not asking for an increase, but only to protect their present job and income level. Ralphs is offering to hire scab truck drivers.

Some of my retired and yuppie friends deplore strikes and say that in other countries people work for lower wages. They do not of course volunteer to give up their own big salaries and fat Social Security checks, but only recommend that butchers and truck drivers accept the level of slave labor in Taiwan, etc. Nor do the corporate heads of supermarket and other industries offer to reduce their profits.

I will not shop at the supermarkets until this strike is settled, and if it is not settled in this next few weeks, I will not return to Vons where it began.

MARY P. AUSTIN

Pauma Valley