Local union workers at the big-four grocery chains (Albertsons, Fred Meyer, QFC, and Safeway) rejected the latest contract proposal from their employers. Both sides have since agreed to additional negotiations—but a possible strike looms as the biggest grocery-shopping holiday of the year approaches.
Tom Geiger, spokesman for UFCW 21, the local grocery union, says workers are concerned about the employers’ proposals to cut pay, pensions, and health benefits. “People thought this was unacceptable,” says Geiger.
But the contract that UFCW 21 rejected doesn’t necessarily support these claims. While some pay bonuses would be reduced (like extra money for working on holidays, for instance), certain wages would increase, says Scott Klitzke Powers, vice president of Allied Employers, the firm negotiating for the employers. Powers says that the employers’ proposal also includes $48.9 million in new contributions to medical and pension funds and preserves step increases in wages.
Even if union workers do accept the deal from the big grocers, workers may come out okay. But that doesn’t mean their union bosses can’t encourage them to hold out for more. Line items like the $591,000 UFCW 21 just spent to keep liquor stores state-run—an effort to maintain state jobs running an inefficient liquor monopoly—don’t fund themselves. 
Does this involve staff at small grocery stores such as Madison Market, or just “local union workers at the big-four grocery chains (Albertsons, Fred Meyer, QFC, and Safeway)”?
Holding out for more? I honestly think most of us just want our employers to cut less. I am a grocery worker. I like my job. I am paid fairly for my work. The employers propose to change this. Part of the job is working evenings, weekends, and holidays. For those who work every Sunday in an effort to eke out something near 40 hours, this contract results in a pay cut of $2,000 per year. Sunday pay which is being cut is not a bonus. It is included in our regular paychecks each week and taxed at the same rate as our Monday-Saturday pay. The employers would have you think they are reducing bonuses, when in reality they are reducing our hourly pay.
Mr. Powers says that the contract preserves step wage increases. I have not seen the contract (Have you, Matt?) but accoring to the Union, the employers (as of 11/07) propose a small bonus for journeyman checkers. This bonus would end up being about $250, after being taxed at a higher rate than regular income. Journeyman checkers would get this lump sum rather than a step increase in a year. And then in another year. After three years, there is a modest (maybe 2%) increase in our hourly pay. Fine. No problem. But let’s be honest. If you cut my pay by $2,000 then give me a “bonus” of $250, this is NOT a wage increase. It is a pay cut.
Oh, and guess what? Courtesy clerks fare much worse. The employers propose cutting their hourly wage to the state minimum. What a crummy thing to do to people when prices of the most basic necessities continue to escalate. Shame on you, Kroger, Safeway, and Albertson’s.
What an informative article!
But I joke.
well I suppose you could have paid attention in school , then gotten a real job . Then you wouldn’t have these problems .They way I remember the whole grocery gig working was the ladies did the checker gig , and high school kid’s and retards were the baggers . It’s not supposed to be a career , but some thing you did on the way to some thing else . Get a real job , and you won’t have these problems . I’d suggest joining s.e.i.u. for a union but they are for blacks and latino (illegal )immigrants , but even that is starting to fail in face of the tea party . Go back to school , and maybe ten years after Obamas done ruining the country you might be able to get a real job .
Poor Unpaid Intern: he got his big break in witting a mundane article about grocery store labor relations, and immediately resorted to 1930’s MGM-esque cliches about “union bosses”
I suppose it just goes to show that some people should never leave suburban Cleveland – an area ripe for annexation by robot farmers.
@ Eric Cartman
Don’t hold back on my account. Forget the ‘tards, blacks, and hispanics; what about the Jews?
Oh Dear……this is a shit article with a clear agenda.
What do you expect from a scab?
Mike Luby, embedded scab reporter, ladies and gentlemen.
Poor Matt Luby. You got your big chance but couldn’t resist placing a biased opinion in this article.
Where are the analytical facts a reporter is suppose to bring from both sides?
I know many people involved with this fight. You could have brought the complete story but……..
@5: wow man. Just motherfucking wow.
@5
One shows up, does a series of assigned tasks, and is paid for time doing those tasks.
Sounds like a real job to me.
What an embarrassment of an article. Embedded scab reporter indeed. Shame on the Stranger for running this–I would have expected better.
@ #7 jew’s ? jew’s don’t work , They profit from other people’s work . There , you happy ? @ #5 it is work yes , transition work . Some thing you do on the way to a career type job . Don’t center your life around it , it’s never gonna give you a life style above subsistence , if you manage to make that much . Its the difference between riding a bike to work in the rain and snow , and rollin in a pimped out ride . ( i threw that in for my urban friends ). @ #14 expected better from the stranger ? they are just pandering to a target audience , it’s what they do .
WTF — are you too good to pay for honest hard work which literally puts food on your table? What is with The Stranger and it’s constant swipes at unions and and union officials, to wit-
Working People!
Honest hard working people who organize to better their lives. It’s pathetic. you slacker want-to-be elitists (cause you’re not- not elite- and too lazy to create a real talent or skill which would be valuable in the real world)
Sure UFCW spent a bunch of money to save some union jobs -even though they were outspent by outside national business organizations the general public agreed with the premise that alcohol is a dangerous drug and deserves serious state regulation.
Matt Luby should be ashamed of this hit job on working people -Radar
Cartman, it’s the same old, same old from you. Again.
As a grocery store worker (and contractually forbidden to name my employer online), I can tell you that there ARE careers within the company and that working for a living is working for a LIVING. Being a checker is not unlike being an assembly line worker, or a secretary, or a sales agent.
Just because you believe that stereotypes dictate the nature of reality doesn’t mean that ANY stereotype of ANY kind has even a passing acquaintance with actual reality. So your belief that all workers of a “type” must be a particular “type” of person, and that everyone has the same opportunities in life and if they don’t it’s their own fault, does not have any impact on the infinite variety of the human experience.
A job that provides a livable wage may be an excellent fit for someone who centers their life around something else; and most checkers do. Not everyone, you see, centers their life around money. But a livable wage is still a necessity, even if you do imagine that the job must be “transitional.” @2,3 knows exactly what s/he’s talking about. And Cartman, as usual, you don’t.
I worked for 3 years at Ken’s Market on Phinney Ridge. The owners conned everybody into working THROUGH A REMODELLING PROCESS on the promise that everyone would ‘be taken care of’. Guess what? Nearly a year later, my friends that still work there are waiting for their ‘raise’. Bad faith.
Ken’s Market on Phinney Ridge and Marketime in Fremont are NON-UNION operations. Their wages are below union scale.
I’m not a total union supporter, but working in the grocery industry without union support is just another form of serfdom.
@ # 17 I love you too alisoncircus ! now quit staring into my room at night while i’m sleeping!
Out of touch turd scab.