Colorado Grocery Workers Appear Ready To Strike

The Colorado Springs Gazette reported Wednesday that the Colorado grocery workers took one step closer to striking this week when they walked out on negotiations with Safeway after the grocery store chain refused to change its contract offer:

Safeway said the union's offer was little changed its last proposal in early September. "In response, (Safeway) expressed an unwillingness to change its position further based on the union's lack of meaningful movement," Kris Staaf, a Safeway spokeswoman in Denver, said in a press released Wednesday. No further talks have been scheduled.

In response, the local chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers union is asking for permission from its international headquarters to call a strike. According to the union's website, the strike could be called this week.

In an interview with Westword's Michael Roberts, Laura Chapin, spokeswoman for UFCW Local 7, said the union would still like to come to an agreement through negotiations, but was not optimistic that Safeway would consider their offer.

What's next? "Our preference, by far, is to work this out at the negotiating table, but they don't seem willing to meet us halfway," she says. "So now, once we finalize the sanction from the international, we'll see what the company does when they're actually faced with workers willing to go on strike over wages and pensions."

Colorado Pols reports that King Soopers has distributed a letter to its employees saying they would lock out employees if Safeway workers strike

Comments

[WilliamL]

10:22 AM on 10/24/2009

It wd. be good to see Union proposals for negotiatons, Safeway counter, and so forth.

What are principles of negotiations? What are economics -pay scales, raises, co-pays and so forth- and what are non-economic bargaining issues?

Such issues are what these negotiations come down to and it is hard to make a call on a strike vote not knowing these issues?

[RockyMtns]

02:00 AM on 10/24/2009

My family will not cross the picket lines. You have good employees and you treat them like dirt. I overheard one of the cashiers at a Boulder Safeway talking about her working conditions to another cashier and I was appalled. I was embarrassed that I shopped there. I was sad that things have gotten to that stage. Safeway and King Soopers you should know that we have other choices. Your customers care about the workers and their rights. They are the people that we interact with and get to know. They deserve more. You will only lose if you lock your people out.

[1differentdrummer]

11:08 AM on 10/23/2009

King Soopers locks out and we buy at Costco and Wal Mart. We won't cross a picket line and we probably won't be back. Our KS pharmacy has an entirly new crew and that kind of turnover says bad management. Why don't the grocers understand it's a partnership with workers?

[cedy]

01:53 AM on 10/23/2009

Ohh boy, here we go again, I talked to some workers at safeway, and the offer from safeway does indeed suck. I still believe in unions, but the model they use is out of date, the fee's in taken out of paychecks are way out of control. If the union didn't take out so much, their paychecks would be a grand higher over the course of a year. A grand ( I am not exactly sure as I haven't worked for the union in years) is enough money for a huge payment on a credit card!

I know it's not really that simple and my point isn't very impressive, but either way it does make a difference.

The workers sometime take huge advatages of the union rules too, I know a guy that would avoid going to work for any reason possible. If he earned a day off, he immediatly took it. He took his 15 minute breaks right on time, his lunch down to the minute. Many times he would simply not go to work , complaining about something or other. The union kept backing him up until they too finally had enough of him. It took the grocer another three years of paperwork and stuff to finally get rid of him forever.

Grocery is big politics and everyone is involved. I personaly don't know any grocery worker that isn't stressed out at the constant conflict between the management and workers.

Todays unions need to be reworked.