Take Action on Grocery Workers' Fight

The Long Beach Press-Telegram has a special feature each week called "Speakout" that publishes a wide variety of reader's letters on a particular topic each Sunday. This is the question this week:

Question: If grocery workers strike again, would you honor or cross their picket lines? After the last strike was settled, in 2004, did you return to the market you patronized before the strike, or did you continue shopping elsewhere?

Take five minutes and email question@presstelegram.com by 5pm on Thursday and help build public support for the workers in their fight for fair wages and health care benefits. Make sure you include your name and city.

Here are a few talking points from the grocery workers:

• Grocery workers haven't had a raise since 2002, yet Ralphs, Vons, and Albertsons made over $8 billion in profits last year while their three CEOs raked in over $27 million.
• Since 2004, the markets have stopped providing health insurance for more than half of their grocery workers. That's more than 40,000 workers and 20,000 of their children who have no access to health care coverage.
• The employers claim they can't afford to offer a fair contract, but Stater Bros. and Gelson's Markets -- two regional employers that are dwarfed in size by the national chains -- agreed to a fair contract with their workers before their contracts expired.
• This is a problem facing millions of American workers who are trying to make ends meet while corporations are making billions of dollars in profits. It's time to send a message to corporations like Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons that their workers deserve a fair wage and decent health care benefits.

Tips for writing a letter: Keep it short and sweet. Make it your own: it's much more effective if you don't copy and paste the above. Put in personal anecdotes.

Feel free to include your letter in the comments and let us know if you get yours published.