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California Grocery Strike OverBut Health Care Battle Looms
The end of the California grocery strike and lockout may be only the beginning of the fight nationwide for supermarket employees and millions of other workers fighting to save their health care benefits.
After nearly five months on the picket line, California grocery workers approved a new contract Feb. 29 that makes some health care concessions but doesn't go nearly as far as management wanted.
CWA members made donations to the strike fund, rallied, marched on picket lines and handed out literature asking people to boycott Safeway, whose CEO is leading the campaign to cut workers' health benefits.
CWA's help included a February gift of $100,000 from the Defense Fund to aid the 70,000 United Food and Commercial Workers members on the front lines of the health care war.
"Their fight is our fight," CWA President Morton Bahr said. "The grocery chains are among a long list of profitable companies that are slashing health benefits for working families across this country. There's no question that health care costs are rising, but corporate greed has turned a problem into a crisis. Today, some workers have to choose between paying the lion's share of their health care coverage or feeding and housing their families, leaving them with no insurance at all. This is unacceptable in the 21st century."
Safeway's final offer before the picket lines went up would have cost current workers nearly $100 a week in premium co-payments. New workers would get virtually no health benefits.
In addition to the $100,000 contribution, CWA members and locals took part in "adopt a striker" and made individual gifts to the UFCW strike fund. District 9 President Tony Bixler said they include $10,000 donations from Locals 9400 and 9410 in California and a pledge of 1 percent of dues collected from members of Local 9413 in Sparks, Nev.
"Our members understand that this isn't an issue unique to grocery workers," Bixler said. "I think we will see it in almost all our negotiations from now into the future."
CWA members joined UFCW members on picket lines in California and took part in informational pickets at stores owned by the chains in other regions.
In Washington, D.C, where contracts expire March 27 for 18,000 workers at Safeway and the Giant supermarket chain, CWA staff volunteered to hand out flyers to Metro train riders asking them to boycott Safeway. Most people readily took the flyers and some said they'd already stopped shopping at the chain because of the workers' fight in California.
Although Safeway's profits have climbed 82 percent over the past five years, the strike and boycott efforts clearly had an impact on the final quarter of 2003. The company announced Feb. 12 that it suffered a $696 million net loss during the fourth quarter and linked more than $100 million of the losses specifically to the strike.
The grocery workers, who struck at Albertsons, Kroger and Safeway-owned Vons chains, lived on strike funds - about half their normal pay - for almost five months. According to media reports, some have lost their cars and homes and have even had to send children to live with an ex-spouse or relative.
Because strikers fell so far behind financially, donations are still being accepted to help them. They can be made online at https://secure.ga3.org/08/holdtheline. Donors may also send a check, payable to UFCW Strike Hardship Fund to the AFL-CIO, Attn: Tom Salvetti, AFL-CIO, 815 16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20006.
After nearly five months on the picket line, California grocery workers approved a new contract Feb. 29 that makes some health care concessions but doesn't go nearly as far as management wanted.
CWA members made donations to the strike fund, rallied, marched on picket lines and handed out literature asking people to boycott Safeway, whose CEO is leading the campaign to cut workers' health benefits.
CWA's help included a February gift of $100,000 from the Defense Fund to aid the 70,000 United Food and Commercial Workers members on the front lines of the health care war.
"Their fight is our fight," CWA President Morton Bahr said. "The grocery chains are among a long list of profitable companies that are slashing health benefits for working families across this country. There's no question that health care costs are rising, but corporate greed has turned a problem into a crisis. Today, some workers have to choose between paying the lion's share of their health care coverage or feeding and housing their families, leaving them with no insurance at all. This is unacceptable in the 21st century."
Safeway's final offer before the picket lines went up would have cost current workers nearly $100 a week in premium co-payments. New workers would get virtually no health benefits.
In addition to the $100,000 contribution, CWA members and locals took part in "adopt a striker" and made individual gifts to the UFCW strike fund. District 9 President Tony Bixler said they include $10,000 donations from Locals 9400 and 9410 in California and a pledge of 1 percent of dues collected from members of Local 9413 in Sparks, Nev.
"Our members understand that this isn't an issue unique to grocery workers," Bixler said. "I think we will see it in almost all our negotiations from now into the future."
CWA members joined UFCW members on picket lines in California and took part in informational pickets at stores owned by the chains in other regions.
In Washington, D.C, where contracts expire March 27 for 18,000 workers at Safeway and the Giant supermarket chain, CWA staff volunteered to hand out flyers to Metro train riders asking them to boycott Safeway. Most people readily took the flyers and some said they'd already stopped shopping at the chain because of the workers' fight in California.
Although Safeway's profits have climbed 82 percent over the past five years, the strike and boycott efforts clearly had an impact on the final quarter of 2003. The company announced Feb. 12 that it suffered a $696 million net loss during the fourth quarter and linked more than $100 million of the losses specifically to the strike.
The grocery workers, who struck at Albertsons, Kroger and Safeway-owned Vons chains, lived on strike funds - about half their normal pay - for almost five months. According to media reports, some have lost their cars and homes and have even had to send children to live with an ex-spouse or relative.
Because strikers fell so far behind financially, donations are still being accepted to help them. They can be made online at https://secure.ga3.org/08/holdtheline. Donors may also send a check, payable to UFCW Strike Hardship Fund to the AFL-CIO, Attn: Tom Salvetti, AFL-CIO, 815 16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20006.