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Posted on 10/13/2003 10:23:00 AM PDT by Brian S
Workers Vote To Strike Tuesday
POSTED: 12:16 p.m. EDT October 13, 2003 UPDATED: 12:21 p.m. EDT October 13, 2003
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Union workers at 44 Kroger stores in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky voted Monday to strike after rejecting the company's contract offer.
More than 2,000 members of United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400 approved the strike Monday morning at a meeting in Charleston, more than the two-thirds majority required to authorize a strike, said Local 400 President Jim Lowthers.
The union represents about 3,300 workers for the Cincinnati-based chain in 37 stores in West Virginia, five in Ohio and two in Kentucky. The Ohio stores are in Belpre, Gallipolis, Marietta, Pomeroy and Proctorville.
A vote also was scheduled Monday afternoon in Clarksburg but those results would not change the outcome, Lowthers said.
"The proposal doesn't provide enough money to pay for our benefits. They ought to be providing for the families that helped earn that money," Lowthers said.
"We ain't asking for all of it, just a fair shake," said Randy Atkins, who works at a Kroger in Charleston. Atkins commutes 100 miles daily roundtrip from his home in Oak Hill to the store.
Union members planned to set up picket lines at 10 p.m. Monday.
Twenty stores normally close at midnight. A Kroger spokesman said the company planned to close all 44 stores at midnight Monday and keep them closed.
"Kroger will not operate those 44 stores for the duration of the work stoppage, although store pharmacies will remain open so the customers can have their prescriptions filled," said Archie Fralin, a spokesman for Kroger's mid-Atlantic region in Roanoke, Va.
In California, Kroger and its subsidiaries, Ralphs and Albertsons, along with Safeway Inc., Vons and Pavilions hired replacement workers to keep their stores open Sunday as about 70,000 striking grocery workers picketed outside. The companies want employees to pay a larger share of health care costs.
For workers in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, Kroger proposed an 8 percent, or $9 million increase in what it pays into a health and welfare fund administered by a third party on behalf of the company and union.
An independent actuary determined the fund needs an additional $29 million, Lowthers said.
Union members would have to pay more for health care or suffer cuts in benefits under Kroger's proposal.
Pete Williams, president of Kroger's Mid-Atlantic region, wrote a letter to employees over the weekend saying the company offers generous benefits compared with nonunion grocers like Wal-Mart "who want our business and want your jobs."
After a strike, some stores may not reopen, Williams said.
The proposed contract included:
-- Hourly pay raises of 20-25 cents per hour this year and in 2005, along with lump-sum payments of $300-$500 in 2004 and 2006.
-- An increase in the number of full-time employees by 50 a year for four years, unless store closings or sales reductions make the plan unfeasible.
-- Rules about how the company must try to find new jobs for workers displaced by new technology, such as self-service check-out lanes.
Kroger made $542 million in profits through the end of August, down $27 million from 2002.
When gov't employees want more, they can just arrest us if we won't pay, so it will be just fine, but the jails will be full.
At this tough time, I have to have little sympathy for the Union members and their harsh working conditions there in the grocery store. (That is probably why all the great folk songs were set in coal mines, where things were actually really bad and they really needed unions.) I have been in and out of jobs in a half-dozen fields in my life, and the working conditions and perks in Union jobs have generally been a lot better than I ever made. Good for them. In the good times, when the company is making a lot of money, the company can pay those kinds of payouts.
In bad times? The unions never stop. They seem to think that the company exists only to provide padded jobs for them. Well folks, the company exists to make money for its owners and/or stockholders. And if you push, really, really hard...your jobs will go someplace to some backwater third-world country, where they are happy to make enough to eat!
And the union's solution to jobs that stream to other countries? (Gotta love this!) Of course, you try to unionize the third world...so that the jobs can flee from there as well! Won't they be grateful to you!
In California, They're being asked to pay $5 per week for individual coverage and $15 per week for family coverage and they find that unacceptable. They've been getting full coverage at no additional cost for years. Every time the insurance rates go up, they are getting a RAISE in benefits but they don't seem to understand that concept.
The proposal doesn't provide enough money to pay for our benefits. They ought to be providing for the families that helped earn that money," Lowthers said.
Solution:
"Get another job.", Asformeandformyhouse said.
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