Area grocers, union stock up for a fight | Sacramento Bee

[Ediacara]

Area grocers, union stock up for a fight

By Dale Kasler -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, June 13, 2004

Barely three months after a devastating strike ended in Southern California, the supermarket industry's labor wars are coming to Sacramento. They could produce one of the most contentious labor negotiations the region has seen.

The stakes are enormous: A historic restructuring is taking place at supermarkets across the United States, with low-cost and non-union operators such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. grabbing chunks of market share from the traditional, unionized supermarket chains. To regain their competitive footing, the chains have been demanding contract concessions - and mostly succeeding.

In city after city, workers have given back portions of benefits - particularly in health care - and agreed to controversial two-tier contracts that relegate new hires to a lower status. Although the givebacks have been modest in some cities, labor has been forced to play defense, struggling to preserve what traditionally has been a middle-class occupation.

More at the Sacramento Bee

[dArKeR]

1. I'm not 100% on this but aren't the way Costco and Wal-Mart treat their

employees like the difference between Abu Ghraib prison and a working vacation in Hawaii?


The Only Company Wal-Mart Fears
Nobody runs warehouse clubs better than Costco, where shoppers can’t resist luxury products at bargain prices.
By John Helyar
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/investing/articles/0,15114,538834,00.html

I believe this article goes on to say that all Costco employes make $40K+ after four years of service. There's a difference of a company taking care of their employees and no need for a union compared to legalized GOP sanctioned torture of Wal-Mart employees.

Does Franken archive his shows? They did a 2 hour on Wal-Mart last week.