Grocery Contract Negotiations

UFCW put a deadline on negotiations today, which has come and gone without word of a contract or even a breakthrough in discussions. There is a press conference this afternoon, but what I wanted to do is show you exactly what the union has asked for and the big chains have rejected.

On Health Care:

Today, 50% of Southern California's grocery workers and 20,000 of their children don't have health care coverage since Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons have long eligibility requirements.

Southern California's grocery workers gave the employers a health care proposal that would shorten eligibility to six months for new hires, guarantee coverage for children within six months and cover 100% of basic preventative care such as physicals, mammograms and child immunizations.

This plan would cost Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons exactly ONE CENT MORE than they are already contributing, but they refuse to accept it because they want to contribute LESS to health care benefits than they do now.

What's worse, they want to make up for their reduced funding by using the vast majority of the grocery workers' health care trust fund reserves -- a move that could bankrupt the entire fund by the end of the contract, forcing drastic cuts to benefits and dramatically increasing out of pocket costs. This has happened in six other states due to the under-funding proposed by the markets.

On Wages:

Southern California's grocery workers haven't had a raise in five years. The CEO's of Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons together made over $21 million in salary and bonuses last year alone, but they still refuse to give grocery workers a raise. And, the cost of living has increased over 12% since grocery workers had a raise in 2002.

What's worse is that Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons would like to reduce wages even further for new workers so that they would only make minimum wage.

This is unacceptable.

Grocery workers are still waiting for a wage proposal from the employers that includes a wage increase.

Ralphs, Albertsons and Vons are deliberately stalling. They do not want to pay their workers a fair wage, nor do they want to ensure they have health insurance. The grocery workers are not asking for anything outrageous. They just want to be able to provide for their families. If other chains can sign a similar contract, why can't they?