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Supermarket
Workers Strike |
Posted:
10.27.03
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Health care benefits and the onslaught of major grocery superstores
like Wal-Mart are fueling a dispute between supermarket workers
and their employers in California.
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A conflict between the supermarket
workers' union and employers in Southern California over the cost
of health care insurance has highlighted the shifting economic forces
affecting millions of workers around the country. |
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Why workers
are on strike |
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 Grocery
store workers walked out of their jobs at 859 grocery stores in
Southern California this month after contract negotiations failed
between their employers and their union, the United Food and Commercial
Workers Union.
Among other things, the workers - 70,000 strong - are protesting
the desire by major grocery chains such as Albertsons, Ralph's
and Safeway to make employees contribute to rising medical benefit
costs.
"The union remains ready and available to talk any time
to employers … but workers are not going to give up their
health care," UFCW spokesman Greg Denier told the Reuters
news service.
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The high
cost of health care |
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Health care costs are on the rise everywhere, forcing companies
to make decisions about how to balance the expense of keeping
workers covered while at the same time keeping them happy. Some
health care economists - and many insurance companies - argue
that generous coverage has given Americans and their doctors a
perverse incentive to indulge in wasteful consumption of expensive
drugs and tests.
The only way to control spending, they say, is to expose consumers
to the true costs of health care.
In a joint statement released last week, the supermarkets said
that companies must control health care costs in order to remain
competitive.
 "We
proposed to the union that our current employees, who pay no portion
of their health care premium now, share a small portion of the
costs of that coverage."
In California, supermarket employees make an average of $12 to
$14 per hour and contribute no money to their medical benefits.
The union has said that the cost of paying for increases in co-payments
would be too high.
"If you have fully covered health benefits, you're very,
very lucky, but you're also sort of a dinosaur," said Jack
Kyser of the L.A. County Economic Development Corp.
In other parts of the country workers pay an average of $2,400
a year for health insurance. The California grocers are asking
employees to pay $800.
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Wal-Mart's
role in the strike |
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The grocery chain executives argue that they have to pass some
of the cost on to workers to survive the challenge posed by their
largest competitor: Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart, which pays its employees about 25 to 30 percent less
than most grocers and does not have unions to fight for employee
rights, plans to build 40 new superstores in Southern California
by 2009.
 In
Arizona, one industry consulting group, Retail Forward, estimates
that the opening of each new Wal-Mart superstore - a store that
sells groceries and fresh produce as well as house wares - will
lead to two supermarkets going out of business.
As the nation's largest private employer, Wal-Mart can bargain
for lower prices from suppliers. In addition, only about half
of Wal-Mart's roughly 1 million employees are in a company health
plan, according Mona Williams, a Wal-Mart vice president. Many
are ineligible for health care benefits because they were hired
too recently.
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The effects
of the strike |
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On Friday, one frustrated customer crossed the picket line at
a grocery store in Irvine, Calif., after she was forced to go
to three different stores to do her shopping, the Associated Press
reported.
"I can sympathize with their situation," said the shopper
Theresa Volk about the strikers. "But I really don't think
they have a clue as to the cost of health care."
 Meanwhile,
supermarket workers in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and Missouri
are also striking Krogers to retain their health benefits.
"Until there is some type of resolution to the health care
crisis nationally, the issue of health care will continually emerge
as the No. 1 issue that will lead to strikes in the country,"
according to Kent Wong, the director of Center for Labor Research
and Education at UCLA.
--
Kristina Nwazota, Online NewsHour
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