A vote from my union members to 'possibly' strike over company's reaction to Obamacare

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8. I think Stop and Shop has their own negotiations and their own separate contract

Giant and Safeway always vote together around here.

It is health benefits at the heart of the disagreement. Giant forced us into a short term contract over a year ago while they waited to see if the Supreme Court would undo Obamacare. having lost that battle, they've moved on to exploiting the new law to cover their profit-taking attempt to cut off part-time workers from benefits and negotiate a reduction in the maximum amount of hours a part-time employee might be scheduled and still retain that pt classification. Sustained hours scheduled over the maximum is supposed to result in a full-time opening being created (in our current and past contracts). Giant works hard to keep us under that amount.

What they want to do now is to permanently limit part-time workers to under 30 hours to avoid the Obamacare requirement that they provide such workers health care benefits. They've already begun to limit hours, in anticipation. Our union is trying to prevent them from doing that.

I'm thankful that's a sticking point with our union, but, I'm also unsure whether we'll succeed in the end in preserving the potential for more hours scheduled beyond the limits set by the HCA. I'm not really that pessimistic; just worried. They don't really seem to give a shit about us workers, so, I'm wondering where we'll find agreement or a deal.

It's about our employer's response to the ACA; more than it has to do with some flaw in the hourly requirement. That's were our union comes in. We're going to do as much as we can to persuade Giant to continue providing the benefits they've been offering all of the 30 years I've worked for them.

Solidarity!