After 2 Years, Gigante and Union Reach Contract Pact
Grupo Gigante supermarkets and the United Food and Commercial Workers on Friday announced a contract covering current and future Southland Gigante stores, with union leaders hailing the deal as a major inroad into the fast-growing mix of ethnic supermarkets.
The contract ended two years of intense, sometimes contentious efforts by the UFCW, which has seen its market share drop sharply in recent years with the proliferation of nonunion ethnic markets and large discount chains.
Although still not comparable to the major chains, which pay close to $20 an hour in wages and benefits, pay at Gigante will jump significantly by the end of the four-year contract. By then, experienced checkers--including part-time workers--will earn $10.69 per hour with an additional $3 per hour in family health insurance benefits. Wages are now at or close to the state minimum of $6.25 per hour.
The union has agreed to promote Gigante as an alternative to nonunion competitors. The Mexico City-based chain has opened three stores in the region over the last two years and has plans for up to 30 more.
“With the union as our partner, we intend to demonstrate that it is possible to sell quality products at fair prices while paying our employees union wages and benefits,” Justo Frias, president of Gigante USA Inc., said in a statement.
Ricardo Icaza, president of one of three UFCW locals that ran the campaign, said the union will now focus on other ethnic markets, most of which are nonunion and pay relatively low wages.
“Those nonunion companies that are refusing to recognize the rights of workers are going to find themselves in a real dilemma, “ Icaza said.
The mutual admiration is a far cry from the positions both sides took when the campaign was launched two years ago. Union activists picketed and rallied in front of Gigante stores, marring each of the grand openings. Gigante produced workers who said they wanted nothing to do with the UFCW and claimed union organizers had intimidated them.
In recent months, however, Gigante changed its position and began negotiating with union representatives. Frias agreed to allow organizers into Gigante’s three stores, in Arleta, Pico Rivera and Covina, to distribute union cards.
The affiliation vote by about 200 employees was done quietly through a private arbitrator, outside the usual National Labor Relations Board election process, April 12. A contract was ratified two weeks later--a remarkably fast turnaround for a first contract.
“They could have fought us all the way, and they didn’t,” Icaza said.
The UFCW, which once represented more than 80% of retail grocery workers in the Southland, has been increasingly concerned with the loss of market share caused by the growth of small ethnic chains. That smaller share has made it more difficult to maintain high wages and benefits at the major markets, Icaza said.
