2004-06-17 by Clayton Park Journal Business Editor
The possibility of a strike by workers at the Puget Sound area's four largest grocery chains continues to loom large, despite a revised contract offer from the companies that incorporated some of the union's proposals.
Leaders for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents nearly 17,000 workers at Safeway, Albertson's, QFC and Fred Meyer stores in Western Washington, on Wednesday called the employers' latest proposal, which was submitted late Tuesday, ``totally unacceptable.''
Beginning today, the union will conduct a campaign to create public awareness of their position that will include informational pickets at selected Safeway stores, door-belling, and direct-mail fliers urging customers to boycott the Pleasanton, Calif.-based grocery chain should a strike or lockout occur here.
Safeway is being singled out by the union because its CEO, Steve Burd, is the ``ringleader'' behind the grocers' proposed demands, said Joey Hipolito, a research associate for the UFCW. ``Wherever we've negotiated with him (in other parts of the country), he refuses to settle,'' Hipolito said.
The extension on the workers' current labor contract, which ended in early May, expires on June 25.
The union has yet to ask its members to vote on whether to authorize a strike.
The grocery chains have already begun taking applications for temporary replacement workers in the event of a strike here, like the one that occurred last fall in southern California over the same issues.
The southern California strike/lockout lasted 141 days before the UFCW and its more than 59,000 members there agreed to settle with the grocers at the end of February.
The main contention between the union and the grocers -- both here as it was in southern California -- is the grocers' insistence that union members start sharing some of the costs of health care benefits, which are currently covered entirely by the employers.
The reasons for the change, the grocers say, are rising health care costs and increasing competition from chains who employ non-union workers, including Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, WinCo, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.
The grocers' latest contract offer includes implementation of a ``standard 80/20 comprehensive medical plan'' for current workers that the employers say incorporates several elements of a proposal the union made on June 4.
Those elements include having current employees contribute $3 per week for employee-only coverage and $10 per week for family coverage.
Under the latest proposal, employers would contribute $3.63 per compensated hour per worker towards the cost of current employees' health plans, as opposed to the $4.60 that the companies pay now.
New hires, after one year on the job, would be eligible to receive a comprehensive 70/30 medical benefits plan that would require them to share in more of the costs than what is proposed for current employees.
Under the employers' latest proposal, new hires would make a weekly contribution equal to 20 percent of the cost of the plan.
New hires would pay the same prescription co-pays as current employees of $10 for generic drugs, $20 for brand name drugs and $30 for brand name drugs when generic drugs are available, as well as the same $20 co-payment for office visits.
New hires, however, would be required to pay for 30 percent of medical procedures, as opposed to the 20 percent that current employees would be asked to pay under the latest proposal.
Geralyn Lutty, regional director for the UFCW, in a press conference Wednesday morning, said the union is willing to ``share some of the costs'' of health care with employers, but described the grocers' latest proposal as ``totally unacceptable.''
``The health care plan has to be affordable to grocery workers,'' Lutty said, adding that the two sides are still ``very far apart.''
Despite a report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Wednesday stating that the union has already rejected the employers' latest offer, a spokeswoman for the grocers said the UFCW has yet to respond directly to them.
``What happens at the (negotiating) table is what matters,'' said Melinda Merrill, the spokeswoman for the employers, who added that the harsh rhetoric from the union appears to be ``typical posturing.''
Merrill also noted that the employers' latest proposal is not a ``final and best offer,'' adding there is no specific time table for that to happen.
``This new proposal by the employers shows there's been some progress,'' Merrill said.
The outcome of the negotiations between the grocers and the union would affect more than the workers at the companies' Puget Sound-area stores. The contracts for another 13,000 workers at Safeway, Albertson's, QFC and Fred Meyer stores in other parts of the state also are due to expire in the coming year, Merrill said.
Also affected would be union workers at several smaller grocery chains, including Larry's Markets, Top Foods, Town & Country Markets and some Red Apple stores, who signed ``me too'' agreements with the UFCW in April. The ``me too'' pacts call for the smaller chains to adopt whatever terms are agreed upon between the larger chains and the union.
Should a strike occur, the smaller chains who signed the pact have agreed to not lock out their workers and will continue to pay them under the terms of their current contract.
Sarah Bright, a longtime Safeway employee who works at the chain's store in downtown Kent, said she and her co-workers are ``ready to fight'' for a more reasonable contract if it becomes necessary.
Bright, who works as a night supervisor, earned $31,000 in gross pay last year, but said ``I make more than the average (grocery) worker'' who only earns about $19,000 a year.
Under the employers' latest proposal, Bright said she would have had to pay nearly $3,500 -- more than 11 percent of her gross earnings -- for health care coverage for her family, which includes her husband, a self-employed electrical engineer, and their two children.
``Suddenly, you don't have a job that you can live on,'' Bright said, adding, ``There are lots of Safeway workers who are single parents. ... This would break them.''
Bright said she and several other co-workers she knows have been setting aside money in case of a strike or lockout.
``People here, of course, are worried about what will happen if we have a prolonged strike,'' Bright said, ``but people here are also willing to do whatever it takes to not accept an unreasonable contract that would take way our benefits and lower our wages and ruin jobs for future employees.''
Posted by UFCW 227 at June 17, 2004 09:48 PM