Southern California grocery store strike
“I guarantee you there’s going to be a strike,” Rick Icaza, president of Local 770 said Wednesday.
The strike will affect Von’s, Ralph’s, and Albertson’s. Management wants to freeze wages for current employees, cut wages for new hires, greatly increase medical costs for workers, cut overtime, and outsource work to non-union people. They appear to want to break the union.
The UFCW (United Food and Comecial Workers) represents 1.4 million workers nationwide and has seven locals in Southern California with about 60,000 workers. I was in a Ralph’s on Tuesday and employees were wearing “No concessions” buttons while management is posting signs for scab labor on the windows. This will be a big, contentious strike that will get nationwide attention. The Teamsters will honor the picket lines.
Connie Leyva, president of Local 1428, which represents workers in the San Gabriel Valley and western Inland Empire, expressed doubt that the mediation would move things forward.
“We’re not at an impasse,” Leyva said in remarks reported by the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. “We’re still talking … but we’re much too far apart right now to benefit from a mediator.”
Leyva said that if management does not amend its latest offer, “we’ll go on strike Saturday.”
Local 770 has 30,000 members in the L.A. area and 98% just voted to strike.
Local 324 has a handy list of places to shop during the strike!