The
New England Stop & Shop strike entered its eighth day Friday as
the grocery store's parent company continued to refuse to honor the
union's demand for a fair contract.
At
the heart of the dispute is an inability for Ahold Delhaize, a Dutch
grocery conglomerate that owns Stop & Shop, and the United
Food and Commercial Workers union (UCFW) to reach an agreement on a
new contract. The sticking point is Ahold Delhaize's refusal to back
down from its demand that the grocery store's workers take a cut in
benefits—even as the parent company is reporting billions in
profits.
"We
want our pension to be left the way it is, our healthcare not to be
taken away from us, to keep our time and a half," striker Chris
Pacitto, explained "Everything that we fight for every day."
It's
the largest strike in at least three years for a private company. The
strike, which affects 240 stores in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and
Rhode Island. Ahold Delhaize claims that Stop & Shop employees
are better paid than direct competitors and that they are the only
unionized food retailer in the region. Be that as it may, that is no
excuse to take what their workers have labored for.
I've
been working paycheck-to-paycheck my entire life," striker
Shaunna Beck told
Rhode Island news channel WPRI. "I
depend on this job."
UCFW
rep Melissa May told local NPR
affiliate WAMC that
"the support from customers has been unbelievable."
"They
have supported us in many ways, first and foremost by not crossing
our picket line, which we are asking everybody not to do," said
the union rep. "But they have also continued every day to come
out with coffee and donuts, with pizza, with personal donations, with
gift cards to other stores, just with well wishes too—keeping our
spirits up and making sure they won't come back until we get a fair
contract."
The
strike started April 11 with 31,000 Stop & Shop grocery workers
walking out. It is the largest strike in the U.S. retail sector since
the Southern California grocery workers’ strike of 2003-2004.
Almost 2,000 Teamsters who work as truck drivers for Stop & Shop
or its vendors and suppliers are refusing to make essential food
deliveries during the strike, leading to bare shelves. If the company
succeeds in weakening the workers’ health care and pension plans,
and lowering the rate for Sunday pay, it will try to impose
concessionary contracts on its workers in other states (New York
State has more than 200 Stop & Shop stores, and the company also
owns the Giant and Food Lion grocery chains). A management victory
would also give encouragement to other unionized food retailers
seeking to reduce costs and boost profits by slashing employee
benefits.
Stop
& Shop management wants to cut workers’ health and pension
benefit plans in order to reduce costs and give even more money to
its major investors, but the company does not need to do so in order
to remain profitable. Management is essentially seeking to make more
short-term profits for its shareholders off the backs of its
lowest-paid and most vulnerable workers, many of whom have given
years or even decades of service to the company. The issue is not
really the competition that Stop & Shop face from non-unionized
Walmart; rather, it’s their desire to adopt the same low-road
practices of poverty-level wages and lousy benefits.
https://truthout.org/articles/stop-shop-strikers-are-standing-up-for-all-grocery-workers/
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Unions claim victory
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/22/when-workers-fight-workers-win-union-declares-victory-stop-shop-strike-ends-deal
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