Ralphs Supermarket Will Close Its Stores If Workers Strike

LOS ANGELES -- Grocery store chains are laying plans in the event grocery workers decide to go on strike over stalled contract negotiations on Sunday night – Ralphs will close, Albertsons may and Vons intends to stay open.

"If there is a strike, Ralphs will initially close all of our stores," said spokeswoman Kendra Doyel in a statement. "During a strike, it is difficult to create a good shopping experience for our customers and a good working environment for our employees."

Albertsons spokeswoman Christie Ly said in a statement that up to 100 Albertsons stores could close for some or all of the strike.

"One of the lessons we learned during the 2003-04 labor dispute is that it doesn't make good business sense to try to operate all our stores during a strike," said Ly.

Officials at the Vons grocery chain have said they intend to remain open if a strike is called.

The strike would come in response to inaction on health care benefits during an eight-month contract negotiation, the workers' union said. Southern California grocery workers issued a 72-hour notice Thursday night to cancel a contract extension and pave the way for a strike, said Rick Icaza, president of Grocery Workers Union Local 770.

A strike isn't guaranteed for workers at Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons, but cancelling the contract removed the final barrier to a strike. A strike would affect 62,000 Southern California workers in the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

Doyel has said her company currently pays more than 90 percent of health coverage costs. Ralphs workers hired before 2004 pay nothing toward their premiums and those hired later pay either $7 a week for single coverage or $15 a week for family coverage.

A four-month strike and lockout that began in 2003 cost Ralphs and other grocery chains an estimated $2 billion.

Comments

[DeadPhish]

11:48 PM on 09/19/2011

Gee, wouldn't nationalized health care solve this problem for both sides?

How ironic.

[opressor]

08:22 PM on 09/19/2011

strike!!! call their bluff....wonder if the big brass at Ralph's are paying more too...and maybe cutting back their big salaries and perks???? probably not.

in the immortal words of Chuck D, Shut 'em Down!!!

[Jim8]

06:52 PM on 09/19/2011

Didn't we all suspect Ralph's was blowing smoke? Are they willing to throw away half of their inventory?

There isn't going to be a strike.

[hypnotoad72]

05:30 PM on 09/19/2011

"If there is a strike, Ralphs will initially close all of our stores," said spokeswoman Kendra Doyel in a statement. "During a strike, it is difficult to create a good shopping experience for our customers and a good working environment for our employees."

Well, it can't be all warm and rosy if the workers are so fed up that they are opting to strike, and by closing the stores, that just sends an even worse message:  That the owner would rather take the money and run rather than letting it trickle down to the workers so that they too can live and afford useless things like food, shelter, education, transportation... 

Food for thought...

[Cordell Cameron]

04:04 PM on 09/19/2011

What's the deal... they are striking over having to pay 15 dollars a week for health care coverage that extends to their family as well... If I'm reading that right, they should fire these people. I'll pay the 15 bucks a week. Give me the insurance.

[Jim8]

06:54 PM on 09/19/2011

When you make $15 an hour, taking another 15 out of your pay is a lot.

[Cordell Cameron]

12:34 AM on 09/20/2011

I don't think you can expect anything cheaper.

[StopMakingSense2]

03:32 PM on 09/19/2011

American business models all depend on slave wages. If we can't pay what they do in third world countries we can't compete! Where did you think free trade and globalization would lead? A race to the bottom! You give your living wage jobs to the third world countries and in return you get cheap, toxic, shoddy trinkets. The only rub is your income will fall like a rock but the price of goods not so much.. What a deal!

[hypnotoad72]

05:31 PM on 09/19/2011

Or depend on them as long as the wealthy have money to spend... maybe that's why they are hoarding right now...  especially if hyperinflation is coming, in our FAIL of an economic system, especially in our "pro-life, Christian nation".

Faved by a fan.

[Tarpon22]

02:52 PM on 09/19/2011

DO IT.
STRIKE and shut them down.

If they refuse to pay an Adult Wage , stike them.

If they are in Business and do not pay a Liviable wage they should be closed.

That goes for all the Retail trash that pays slave wages.

Walmart has 300,000 fulltime Employees that qualifi for Food Stamps.

It's a disgrace and should be ilegall.

Strike, strike them all.

Ron Paul 2012
End the Fed
Close the IRS
Stop the Wars
Bring Troops Home

Viva La Revolution 2011

[James Haun]

03:29 PM on 09/19/2011

why should you pay an 'adult' wage for a job any teenager can do?

[hypnotoad72]

05:36 PM on 09/19/2011

Because all the adult-paying jobs are going out of this country thanks to "free trade" deals.

Amongst scores of other issues, of which more have to do with greed than others trying to learn more, do more, and be more.  It's a lie when a company says they are offshoring a job because US citizens can't read or write, but then read a manual for an imported product whose grammatical acuity is far worse than anything poorly typed out by some guy online...  it's about the greed at the top.

[Jim8]

06:57 PM on 09/19/2011

I don't know why you seem to believe that "any teenager" can do any job in a supermarket.

I suggest you go to a supermarket and look in the back room, you will see people organizing stock, stocking, ordering, unloading trucks.

It's possible there's a job or two even YOU can't do.

[Cranmer1549]

03:32 PM on 09/19/2011

Does your Republican hero, Ron Paul, feel the same way? Uh, he actually doesn't. Do your research before you support a candidate.

http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/right-to-work/

[fem56]

02:42 PM on 09/19/2011

Medical insurance is really expensive. Paying $15 a week for family coverage doesn't seem that bad to me. I have no doubt workers didn't use to have to pay into their insurance coverage but with more sophisticated medical treatments, necessary malpractice insurance and the like insurance premium have gone sky high. I for nationalized insurance but until we get that it doesn't seem like companies have a chose.

[Jim8]

01:47 PM on 09/19/2011

I know a couple of grocery store employees. One guy is the receiving manager, he unloads the trucks and organizes the stock. Unskilled? He drives a forklift, which is a skill of some level, and he has to have organizational skills.

He didn't make it as a checker because his people skills are very bad. Not everyone can deal with the public.

I think what's happening to grocery store employees is just part of the right wing attack on the working man. Teachers, fire fighters (oh, they gave that up while getting weepy over 9/11) and everyone they consider less important they are.

In order to have a middle class you have to accept that people in the middle need to pay their bills, and their taxes.

[James Haun]

02:31 PM on 09/19/2011

I agree to an extent with what you are saying, but it seems that nobody wants to accept the fact that in order to have a middle class, there has to be a class above it and one BELOW it. Why does every job out there have to support, at a minimum, a middle class existence? For whatever reason, some people choose to go forward on a path that is not very prosperous and that is a choice that they are free to make, but they must accept the financial consequences of their choices.

[DaveMacaray]

02:59 PM on 09/19/2011

The point you're missing is that, as former Sec. of Labor Robert Reich has repeatedly noted, for our economy to flourish, we need a large and healthy middle-class. It's not a question of there being a class BELOW the middle; it's a question of the middle being systematically decimated.

[hypnotoad72]

05:41 PM on 09/19/2011

Teenagers make great burger-flippers, and those jobs are a means to develop the young. 

But somebody twice the teen's age trying to support a family?  Most of us are capable of far more, yet only those sorts of places have "help wanted" signs. 

There is a problem afoot.

Are we not told that people who will do any work are better than those who refuse certain types of jobs?

But fast food is a job, even if it pays so little. 

If adults had middle class-paying jobs, then these burger flipping jobs could remain for the teenyboppers, like how they're meant to be. 

A structured economic paradigm.

But that's no longer in place.

And, lastly, if middle class jobs disappear by other entities that are amoral, don't tell us the shtick of "they must accept the blahbety-blah of their choices".  People don't have full control over their environment, though it must be nice and warm and fuzzy for you to believe otherwise.  But if we did have control, then it'd be another story.  But when the rug gets pulled out from under people...  don't tell people to "live within one's means" either.  Not when the ability to live on even basics keeps going up, combined with the cost of college that employers want.

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/01/vicious-cycle-stagnant-wages

The system is skewed, and you're willfully ignoring the complete picture.

BTW:  You must be an Ayn Rand fan.  Read these two articles:

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/middle_class.html
http://shetterly.blogspot.com/2011/01/ayn-rand-bigger-hypocrite-than-we-knew.html

[OhManOhMan]

01:04 PM on 09/19/2011

I don't shop at those rip off stores anyhow. Their prices are outrageous

[Pandoras Folly]

12:40 PM on 09/19/2011

muahahahahah says wal-mart. gotta make sure to have some really great deals going on, really blow out sales while Ralphs is closed and steal some of their market share!.

muahahahahahahahahaha
/sarcasm off

[Pandoras Folly]

12:36 PM on 09/19/2011

did you know that prior to the supermarket back in the 1900s there was a green grocer for every 60 americans and the average family spent something like a 1/3 or more of its income just on food.

[Lona Tucker]

12:03 PM on 09/19/2011

Support your workers Ralph's! I shop with you and I support your hard working really wonderful employee's. They have great attitudes and work hard on their feet all day long. The CEO's can fork some over ~ sitting down. PS get rid of coupons and give us ALL a price break!

[Dana1982]

12:02 PM on 09/19/2011

The Unions should go on strike just to show these stores that they are not going to be bossed around by greedy management. Even if they go broke, run out of their 99 weeks of unempolyment, and go on food stamps, they have to make a stand and show that the unions won't be pushed around anymore.

[James Haun]

02:21 PM on 09/19/2011

greedy management signs their checks and thus, in fact, gets to boss them around...that is how the relationship works

[Dana1982]

02:44 PM on 09/19/2011

Yea, too bad these "workers" didn't have real skills where they could set the terms of their employment on their own. But when you have a job that a trained chipmonk could do, it's hard to make any demands on your employer.

[IndyFem]

11:47 AM on 09/19/2011

I am going to shop where I want. I do not feel that I am responsible for the outcome of every union's contract negotiations.

[timbohp]

08:01 PM on 09/19/2011

Great! Where do you work, so that we can ensure we don't support you when the time comes! Thanks!