Dec. 15—Striking and locked-out grocery workers in California continue to hold the line for health care after nine weeks on the picket line. The 59,000 United Food and Commercial Workers members got a big boost on Dec. 11, when 3,300 UFCW Local 400 members at 44 Kroger supermarkets in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia ratified a new contract in which Kroger increases its annual health care contribution by $12 million—$3 million more than its offer.
In addition to the grocery workers walking the picket lines at Kroger, Safeway and Albertsons in southern California, some 4,000 UFCW Local 700 Kroger workers have worked without a new contract for nearly a month.
The California workers, who have been joined on the picket line by Teamsters members, will rally Dec. 16 with AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney and UFCW President Douglas Dority in Century City. As part of the union movement-wide Hold the Line for Health Care campaign, donations to striking families may be made online through the AFL-CIO or sent to the UFCW Strike Hardship Fund; Attention: Secretary-Treasurer Joe Hansen; 1775 K St., N.W.; Washington, D.C. 20006. The campaign is urging shoppers across the nation not to buy their groceries at Safeway until workers are back on the job.
Profitable Grocers
The grocers—whose combined profits are 91 percent higher than four years ago and whose health care contributions are far below the national average, according to the UFCW—claim they must slash health care to compete with nonunion, low-wage Wal-Mart, which plans to open 40 super-centers over the next four years in California. (At the end of those four years, those super-centers would comprise 1 percent of the California grocery sector, according to financial analysts.)
The grocers are demanding what amounts to a 75 percent cut in health coverage for new workers and a 50 percent cut for current ones. As a result, UFCW leaders say coverage would become unaffordable and meaningful health care unattainable. Workers could lose key benefits, including dental, vision, well-baby care and preventive office visits—and might have to pay as much as half of a $20,000 hospital bill.
Since the lockout and strike began, Kroger reported a 57 percent drop in third quarter earning and the company reduced its economic forecast for the rest of the year.
Solidarity Holds the Line for Health Care
On Nov. 24, hundreds of southern California, West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky UFCW members set up lines at Safeway grocery stores in the Washington, D.C., area urging customers to use their holiday dollars elsewhere in support of workers’ fight for affordable health care. At a 300-strong rally announcing the pickets, local labor, religious and community leaders joined the workers in calling for solidarity in the nation’s capitol.
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