Bad timing for a grocery strike

Re “Grocery conflict rooted in last strike,” April 23

Your article says it all -- there is a right time and a wrong time to strike. Now is definitely the wrong time for grocery store workers to go on strike. Grocery stores are facing increased competition from nonunion stores, and when people go to shop elsewhere, as they did last time, many won’t come back.

Your article points out that Tesco, a British retailer, will be opening the first of hundreds of stores in Southern California and the southwestern United States soon. Grocery workers should appreciate the jobs they have now.

LINDA K. MAYER

La Verne

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As a former retail clerk who spent more than 10 years in the grocery business, I find it incredible that the union and its members would actually think that the grocers would give back to them what we fought hard for back in the 1970s and they quickly gave back three years ago. Face it, retail clerks, your union leaders sold you down the river in 2004 when they agreed to a two-tier system and gave away your benefits. They were looking out for themselves, not you as their members. What we, as retail clerks, went on strike and fought hard to achieve in benefits only 30 years ago, your leaders gave away in a heartbeat. Your union has been broken. Why you allow your leaders to represent you after that is beyond me.

MARTIN MANGIONE

Brea