Wondering if there’s still a grocery-workers strike looming in the week of Thanksgiving? So was I, but the official word is mum. According to both UFCW 21 (the union employees) and Allied Employers (the firm negotiating on behalf of the big four grocery chains) there is no news to report from the latest round of grocery contract negotiations wrapping up today.

But then I just got a call.

A woman from QFC called my cell phone asking if I wanted to interview on Sunday for a temporary job in their grocery store?

First question: “Would you be willing to cross a picket line?”

The background: The previous contract between the workers and employers expired on November 15, shortly after the last pre-deadline attempt at a new contract was voted down by 94 percent of UFCW voting members. Even though union workers did not like the proposed contract’s reduced wage premiums and were unsatisfied by its seemingly large employer contributions to pensions and health benefits, both sides said a strike was unlikely the last time I spoke to them.

So maybe a strike is likely? And to answer the QFC lady’s question, I said yes (being an unpaid intern is fun, but a guy’s got to eat).

185 replies on “QFC Just Asked Me to Cross the Picket Line”

  2. Six Shooter – does your Jew brother have a cushy job with the union? is that what your soppy plea is all about? When you are FORCED to join a union when to take a job – somthing is very amiss and wrong. Most of the hardworking – blue collar workers I know hate their unions and wonder why the F@#k they are forced to join them and wonder why the hell the are FORCED to pay union dues… Unions kill companies and allow lazy employees to stay longer at a job than they should. Unions get in the way of an individual right to freely negociate with an employer… Unions are primarily concerned with their own existance – not with helping anyone but themselves – and taking more of your money… Unions – eliminate JOBS…

  3. @Anarcho-Capitalist, your remark about Six Shooter having a “Jew brother” with a “cushy job with the union” reveals you for what you are. No doubt you believe ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ were real and that there is a plot run by Stalinists and Jews to turn the US into a gulag.

    Now I could tell you how individuals have no power compared to enormous corporations and that without a union the individual will be beaten to a pulp by the corporation while as it cuts pay. And I could tell you that unions help level the playing field between corporations with bottomless wells of capital and the individuals just trying to get by and feed their kids. I could even tell you that employees and employers negotiating terms of employment is fine when all involved have a sense of human decency, but as a corporation is not a human and is really a machine that functions to funnel money to the top 2%, it does not have that sense of decency so unions must be involved. That said, I might suggest that scabbing is a terrible thing to do, as it undermines the strength of the people to make fair deals with their employers and empowers the people who wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire in order to minimize costs.

    But I won’t bother to explain, because you’re an anti-semitic putz that values the power of corporations over the rights of human beings in the name of “American Innovation”. How “American” is your innovation, anyway, when it only benefits the top 2% who would set up shop in the bowels of hell if it was cheaper?

  4. I really want to support UFC. Really. But if they continue to ignore the bottom tier of workers in favor of the higher ones, what the fuck am I supposed to think? We pay our dues. They are pretty high. But we continue to not be eligible for health care and overtime, because he works at the “bottom tier.”

    Yeah, yeah, scabs are scum, blah blah. But don’t tell me I am required to fucking slobber up the union’s butt because “unions are good.” They are all different. Not all unions are the same.

    I just hate hearing “progressives” support fake representationalism. You all might as well tell me “America: love it or leave it.”

    Unions: Bless them all or you’re a fucking Randian. Come on guys, a few of you are smarter than that.

  5. @156 — You’re right. The debate often falls to “unions are good” and people who “don’t support them are bad”.

    The debate falls this way because the unions often have a very little megaphone while the people who oppose them have huge megaphones.

    The simple truth is: If you look closely into any organization, you will find things about it you don’t like. If you look at the overall good versus the overall harms, the picture becomes quite clear.

    America was her most prosperous, the distribution of wealth her most righteous and fair, her labor force the most productive (greatest return in dollars per hour of labor), and her position on the world stage the most respected in her history during the time when labor unions were their strongest.

    Right now, only 7% to 8% of US workers belong to a Union. In the 60s and 70s, that number was closer to 30% or 40%.

    If you measure our success as a country based on the total prosperity of its citizens, you have to conclude unions do more good for this country than almost any other social force. If “innovation” is your only benchmark for the success of our country, you still have to conclude unions do good for the country. The American laborer remains the best value, most efficient laborer in the world, despite our insistence on treating our workers fairly.

    Unfortunately, we’re still arguing against the imaginary innovator who feels like he has to employ imaginary workers who make unreasonable demands just to choke the life from his imaginary innovations. While this scenario seems like it makes perfect sense, it doesn’t actually mirror the real word.

    People like anachro-capitalist will talk all day long about these imaginary individuals, but cannot point to a single one of them. I have a long list of just about EVERY successful American innovator with at least some unionized power making his dreams reality in the real world.

  6. And yes, my jew brother got a job because of the union. He entered a workforce that otherwise wouldn’t have allowed him because the union demanded an end to religious bigotry.

    And my gay brother got a job with the union because the union demanded its workers be judged by fair and knowable standards.

    And my black sister has a job that allows her to feed her children because of the union, even though her employer would like to fire her and hire a younger, whiter woman to take her place.

    And my somewhat lazy older brother who has worked his job for twenty years still has a job because the union says his boss can’t fire him just so his boss doesn’t have to pay for the retirement he’s almost earned.

    If you are so worried about my jew brother, why don’t you ask him what he would be doing if he didn’t have access to the labor market.

  7. Nice to see such nuanced discussion. Nothing sheds light on a issue than casting it in stark black and white. No critical thought necessary but name calling a must.

  8. Dear Stranger staff:

    It’s time to get rid of the anti-union scab, Matt Luby.

    And, even if you don’t get rid of him, you need to have somebody else write articles about the grocery store workers’ labor disputes.

    To not do so would mean that we should not take your publication seriously.

    The UFCW has done a lot of hard work on the issues that the Stranger and it’s readers supposedly care about, like marriage equality, for instance.

    The UFCW has consistently been one of the most pro equality unions around. Their support (along with other unions) of Approve Referendum 71 was instrumental in its passage.

    Not only did they endorse Referendum 71, they voted to utilize their phone banks to help with its passage.

    http://www.sgn.org/sgnnews37_40/page3.cf…

    Many unions helped Referendum 71 pass.

    http://approvereferendum71.org/08/organi…

    Check out #144.

    Just a reminder, in the next few years (as early as 2012 perhaps?) there will be an effort placed before the voters legalizing marriage equality in WA state.

    It’s going to be a very tough fight. And the outcome is going to be very close.

    Your going to need all of the help you can get. You’d be better off with a strong UFCW on your side.

    If you want to win in the future, you are going to need to support the people now who have supported your issues in the past.

    Just a friendly reminder.

    Politics is all about coalition building.

    Don’t fuck over the folks that have gone to bat for you in the past.

  9. @ Anarcho-Capitalist

    There’s no such thing as an anarchist capitalist.

    You need to read a few philosophy and history books, and then get back to us.

  10. @157, I agree that union membership nationwide is low, but when you look at it on a state by state basis, union density is quite high in some. Washington state is around 20%. You can google union density, and the University of Hawaii’s Center for Labor Education and Research has a state by state summary of union density statistics for each state in the nation (their data is taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics). When the right wing shills say that unions are dying, and they quote the low nationwide statistic. But they don’t take into account the disparity in union density from right to work states and closed shop states. It is interesting that the right to work states generally have a lower living standard than closed shop states. Another interesting factoid is that union membership grew a little in 2007 and 2008, during one of the most hostile Labor Departments in our nations history.

  12. Reading these posts almost makes me want to scab in solidarity with Mr. Luby. Scabbing would be worth it just to stick it to you leftist asshole idiots. If it weren’t for the fact that the job sucks, I would. Thank you Matt, and all the other proud scabs who keep stores running while lazy worthless union members try to get more money for standing around holding signs.

  13. And everyone knows Boeing has never innovated anything. And everyone knows that when they were pressed with bad deliverables and missed dead-lines, they cut production in the non-union shops and transferred work back to the people who take pride in the work they do (Union workers).

  16. @166: Ummm… that Wikipedia article cites an absurd number of dependable sources. Use the reference list and find a source that is “reliable.” THis is a well-established concept. You may argue with the nomenclature but it’s not a made up term.

    Kind of like “neoliberalism.” It doesn’t necessarily describe what one might think it does.

  17. Oh dear…..

    I wasn’t arguing your terminology, I was arguing your source material. You seem to be arguing with yourself at this point.

  18. @169: Umm… so, wait, what’s your point? The original debate was about whether or not there was such as thing as “anarcho-capitalism.” See @161. You AGAIN weren’t engaging with the actual issue but a convenient way of attacking another’s argument without providing any evidence or new material of your own.

    Also, your profile photo: Classy.

  19. How come Randians can’t spell?

    Or is it just the rest of us sheep who simply can’t understand their new, innovative approaches to grammar and spelling, because we’re so mired in our dull, servile mindsets that we trust things like “dictionaries” and “schools” and “book-learning” instead of the bold individual initiative that says “I’ll arrange letters on the page however I damn well please and everybody else will just have to figure out what the hell I’m trying to say” ?

    Yeah, it must be that.

  22. Intern, it’s not like I don’t have a job for lack of trying, and it’s not as though I, as you put it, sit on my ass in the meantime. I do something that fulfills me greatly – it just doesn’t pay. And I’m okay with that.

    So yeah, I think I will feel superior to you.

  23. I don’t think this “Unpaid Intern” guy is an asshole.

    But he is clearly an attention whore with a superiority complex.

    Wait, that’s the same thing.

  24. I’ve worked in union jobs and non-union jobs and my experience was always that the non-union jobs were better in every way (better pay, more respected, more opportunity to grow, etc). When I worked for one of the major airlines my experience was that the hard core union kool-aid drinkers were the laziest, most self hating nasty people in the whole organization. They’d file grievances if someone looked at them the wrong way.

    Unions have their time and place. There is nothing wrong with workers voluntarily getting together to negotiate as a group for better working conditions, but so many unions have become their own evil empires full of corruption. So I would strongly encourage all the folks that dogmatically take sides with the unions is to examine each union management dispute on a case by case basis. Unions are not always in the right, and they don’t always do what is best for the workers, especially if you are young and just starting out in the work force.

  25. I’d temp with a temp agency before I’d take a scab job at a grocery store. There has to be better opportunities.

    That said, I’d say Solidarity! and all but UFCW doesn’t take all that great care of their clerks, baggers and counter people. They’re paid like paupers, given few hours and no benefits (all benefits have to be purchased and they’re crappy benefits at that), and nearly half of the ground-floor workers (this is not an exaggeration) are on food stamps. Meanwhile the leadership’s paying themselves around $300K a piece. Some union.

    Union Is Good only makes sense when the Union in question actually serves their workers. But that ship sailed with UFCW decades ago. It no longer stands for and serves what many of you think it does.

    Thankfully it’s settled and the issue is QED, but the pro-union stances I still see today reek of a mindless ignorance and shows that the people who utter such mantras don’t actually pay attention to the world around them anymore.

  26. Unions are mafia type extortion rackets. No more no less. I worked for one for a very brief time before quitting in disgust at the lazy good for nothing ethic preached by the union ‘representing’ me.

    In a nation of laws strikes in which the job one chose to abandon was still there after the extortion picketing should be illegal. Don’t like the way your company pays? Quit. Otherwise an employee has no legitimate say in how the pay structure or other compensation is figured at his or her place of employment.

    Without a union the Dreamliner would likely be on time. Without unions many companies which folded in the face of insane pay demands would still be in business providing employment. Without unions the job flight overseas would likely be stemmed.

    Unions are bad for our economy. They are unethical. They are promoters of laziness and false senses of entitlement. In a civilized nation belonging to a union would carry a year in jail, while a strike would be a felony.

  28. Freedom of speech? How?

    I respect my employees. I value their input on jobs and on the running of my company generally, and encourage that input. I picked the best, pay them well, and expect the best work from them. But, since they aren’t worthless union employees, that last isn’t really to the point. Since they aren’t union they are proud of the skills they practice, and wouldn’t do anything but the best for their own self respect.

    That said, not one of these men takes the risks I do. When those risks pay off, I make a great deal more money than my staff. But then, it was my money that was risked in the first place. The employee gets paid whether a contract is profitable or not. The monthly costs of running an office are borne whether the business made money that month or not. Wnile I stand to make more money, I also risk losing potentially everything I’ve worked for the past couple of decades.

    This is not a freedom of speech issue. This is a freedom of property issue.

  29. @27,

    Yes, because shopping at the non-union stores is a temporary tactic to help the unionized workers win a fair contract. Once the dispute is over, I would resume shopping at the union stores.

    But, I would also try to find good stores that are either unionized or treat workers well that are not part of the strike as alternatives.

  30. Someone said previously:
    What is the union doing for the unemployed or the ungainfully employed?
    Why should the unemployed or the ungainfully employed do anything for the union?

    Nobody has answered this. So is the answer ‘nothing, and no reason’? Or is it ‘the union is making sure that when they do get jobs the jobs are good ones’?

    So assuming we’re not taking the first answer, you guys are arguing that unemployed people should support moves to raise/maintain the standard of living for their better off neighbours, on the assumption that they too will become one of them. Sounds like tax cuts for the rich.

  31. They just suck! I just went to the QFC store where I normally do my purchases in Seattle and when the guy working there saw me taking pictures (actually I was taking video to send it to my brother in Russia to show him american stores) so the salesman told me that videos are prohibited on theit “Private property”. I asked him what would happen if i kept taking pictures and he said that I would be asked to leave.

    Watch my video at youtube look for seattleunted.

  32. @180, Wow, don’t you stink of privilege. How dare those poor people exercise their constitutionally protected right to peaceably assemble. They are just so lazy, if they weren’t lazy, they’d be just like you and have pulled themselves up by the bootstraps. Oh poor victimized big business, how dare those lazy people organize, how dare they demand living wages. They are transgressing property rights!!!

  33. @182, Organized labor is probably the main group right now lobbying Congress for extensions on unemployment benefits. Glen Beck had a funny snippet on his program recently where he was talking about the dangers of organized labor teaming up with the 99ers (those who’ve been on unemployment for 99 weeks or longer) to extend unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed. Beck urged charity, (soup lines? tried that) not benefits for people who can’t find work.

    Organized labor was the group that pushed for unemployment insurance in the first place. We lobby for benefits that are appropriate and rules that are fair. Some of us in unions don’t have steady jobs,(our work may be seasonal, or a job may last for a particular length of time) so our unions are always working on fair unemployment insurance. Unemployment is not a generous gift that the benevolent state hands down to us, it was fought for.

    What do unions do for people out of work? Well, some union members work out of their union hall, where the workers are hired by contracted companies. If the union has an abundance or work, and needs positions filled, they will recruit unemployed people to work. If the union doesn’t have work, they might have a contact at a nonunion company where they could refer an unemployed person to work. Through my union, I was able to find work, even if it wasn’t with a company my union had a contract with. More than a few times, someone (and they weren’t necessarily members) has walked into my union hall looking for work, we didn’t have any, but the business agent helped them find a contact for work.

    Unions also help unemployed people when they negotiate appropriate staffing levels with their employers. Employers want to cut costs, so they may think that they can run with a lean number of employees. Unions, for sometimes safety reasons, will push for a higher staffing level. In my trade, we do that because fatigue is a big factor in my job. As the saying goes,”Many hands make for lighter work.” And unions push for fair trade deals that keep Americans employed, not deals like NAFTA (which Ronald Reagan actually started, G.H.W. Bush continued, then Clinton signed) which kill jobs. I think a big part of our bad economy is due to NAFTA and China’s most favored nation trading status.

  34. Want to know why our public education system is failing? One of the biggest lobbyist groups in Washington DC is the National Education Association (the teachers union). The teacher’s union is the reason this country has rooms full of teachers being given full pay and benefits while they sit around playing board games and checking their email. Some of these teachers have been physically and verbally abusive to students. And they can’t be fired because of the contract that the union foisted upon the education system. Power corrupts.

  35. union gave you a 40 hour work week?

    Well you lazy POS i work 80-90 hours a week for twenty years. And I don’t owe any union slob Business agent a blow job for my house like you do. i work weekends, i work nights and i dont honeor any union cards at my company. Your so tuff you hoe someone gets hurt crossing a picket line well haow much backbome do you have when some lazy union presdident or vp comes gladhanding on your job? Yeah that;s right that feeling whrn you see him is fear that that man is really your boss.

    An you know what else unions gave you?

    Yeah thats right everything in every store you go to is mad in China. You can thank your union for that.

    Get a life quit your union aand give up that commie bullshit. Because that union shit aint American.

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