99 Cents Stores to Sweeten Driver Bid
Executives of 99 Cents Only Stores told Teamsters union officials Tuesday that they would present a sweetened contract offer Friday.
The move temporarily averted a strike by delivery drivers that would have started Tuesday night, at the height of the holiday season.
Drivers could still reject what company executives are calling their final offer, and will meet to consider a strike option Sunday, said Paul Kenny, secretary treasurer of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 630.
Kenny said the company advised him that it would file charges against the union with the National Labor Relations Board if he had launched a strike Tuesday night, as threatened, without giving negotiations one more chance.
A spokesman for the City of Commerce-based discount merchant confirmed that the company would present a final offer Friday.
“We hope we can reach an agreement,” said Tony Yera, vice president for distribution. But, he added, the company has arranged to hire contract drivers in case of a strike.
“There’s no doubt we’re prepared,” he said.
99 Cents Only Stores said in a statement that it provided health benefits, paid vacation, a 401(k) plan and stock options that “no one had to ask the company to provide.” It also said, “At this time we must question who will better be served by joining the union, the employee or the union collecting dues?”
About 80 drivers who serve the main distribution center near Los Angeles voted to join the union in January. There have been sporadic negotiations since then, but the parties remain far apart on wages and benefits.
The union wants a $1-an-hour wage increase per year for the lowest-paid workers. On Monday, the company offered a total increase of $1 an hour over five years, which the union rejected.
Kenny said drivers now earn $11 to $14.50 an hour, with most on the lower end of the range. Yera did not dispute the hourly figures, but said that on a weekly basis, drivers had recently been earning $1,000 a week because of overtime. He also said the drivers spent many hours a day “sitting or sleeping” while their trucks were unloaded.
The union also wants 99 Cents Only Stores to agree to remain neutral during any future organizing drives at its four warehouses and more than 200 stores, which the company has refused to do. Of the company’s 7,600 employees, only the California truck drivers are unionized, Kenny said.
The retailer was founded in 1982 by David Gold, who is still the chairman. According to the company statement, “The founders and their families have not taken wage increases since 1996 and have never taken a bonus, and the chief executive has been in the lower 1% of compensation of companies this size.”
The firm ran into problems this summer with distribution, which caused its stock price to drop by almost a third in one day. Still depressed, the shares rose 55 cents Tuesday to $14.89 on the New York Stock Exchange.
