More than 25,000 brave employees at Giant and Safeway grocery stores in the Washington, D.C. area may go on strike over pensions, benefits, and wage freeze proposals, as reported by WAMU. These workers come from close to 300 stores in the D.C. and Maryland area and are represented by UFCW Local 400 union. After reported months of negotiations between the union and the stores, Local 400 is scheduled to hold a press conference to announce a potential strike vote on Wednesday, Feb. 19, if the union and companies can’t settle on a contract agreement.
“We will hold pickets at every store. In the last week, we have collected signs from every single Giant and Safeway grocery store in the region signed by the workers at that store,” Jonathan Williams, spokesperson and communications director for the UFCW Local 400, said to Fox 5 DC. “We have also collected thousands of Valentine’s cards from customers in support of our members so we feel that if we have to go on strike then we are prepared to do that.”
After months of discussion, the union has a list of proposals it isn’t willing to budge on, as reported by ABC 7 WJLA. Some points, like major jumps in premiums for health care, freezing certain new hires at minimum wage for three years, and slicing future pension benefits, are obviously harmful to workers. Other proposals are just as harmful, but not as widely discussed to people outside of shift or labor workers. For example, the union is hitting back hard against a proposal that would reportedly keep part-time employees at a maximum of 24 hours a week. What’s so bad about that? Oh, that hourly cut-off reportedly makes employees ineligible for some benefits.
In the big picture, studies show that part-time workers are not only more likely to miss days of work but to live with depression. Being stuck in a part-time schedule may lead people to take a second (or third) job, or jump into the gig economy, a field that comes with its own stressors and lack of support. All of this while being, perhaps, without health insurance, a steady paycheck, or frankly, enough money to live. All workers deserve the dignity of not only a living wage but enough hours to survive at that wage.
“Everybody wants their piece of the American dream. I’m no different, and my coworkers are no different either,” Jeffrey Reid, an employee at a Giant market in Silver Spring, Maryland, a D.C. suburb, told WAMU.
As Daily Kos has covered, whether people are in the auto industry, graduate students, teachers and academic staff, or beyond, workers advocating for themselves—which sometimes involves a strike or two or three—is extremely powerful. It’s also not without fear, stress, and possible retribution.
A strike is “not what we want to do but this is our last resort because we have exhausted all other possible avenues,” Williams added.