This past Saturday, I and other members of the Ventura County, CA volunteer group supporting Dean decided to have a "recycle day" to raise a little money for our group. We all brought our bottles and cans down to a local recycling center, and pooled them together for the grand sum of $21.19.
One of the members of the group had decided more or less on the spur of the moment that he'd like to drive around and talk to the striking grocery workers and hand out some sodas and bags of chips and otherwise show them a supportive, smiling face. Lord knows, they see a lot of surly faces of people who for whatever reason think that the strikers are spolied and should just get back to work.
Our first stop was the Von's just around the corner from the recycling center. I hadn't done this before, so I was a bit trepidatious, but when the picketers saw us walking up holding signs of our own emblazoned with UFCW signage and Dean stickers, and lugging a big cooler and box of chip bags, most of them broke into big grins. I piped up and hollered "Who's thirsty?"
"Me!" "Me!" "Me!" came the reply.
So we told them a bit about Dean, and how he had issued a statement the day the strike began in support of their strike, we handed out flyers, and perhaps most importantly, we listened to their stories.
The strike captain at that store, a 51-year-old gentleman, explained that at his age, and even with his years of experience in the grocery business, could get nothing better than a job working an average of about 28 hours a week. A grocery worker who works 30 hours per week making $12.30 per hour is being asked by these giant corporations to contribute the equivalent of 25% of their yearly salary just to pay for the upkeep of benefits they have now. And new workers hired by the chains would not even get the same quality of benefit package.
That same worker would be in a salary range that makes them eligible for public aid. And it dawned on me that this wasn't just about workers attempting to force an employer to treat them fairly and pay them a liveable wage. These strikers were moving against an attempt by these corporations to cost-shift their benefits onto taxpayers.
And on it went, from store to store. We visited a total of six stores. At one store, the strike captain told us that she was good friends with someone in store management, and that they were determined to remain so even if they were on opposite sides of the picket. This member of the management had told the striker that this particular store, which usually averages $580,000 per week in gross sales, had done $160,000 in gross the previous week. And this was before the union strategically pulled their pickets from Ralphs in order to really put the screws to Von's and Albertson's.
So the strike appears to be having an effect. But the public is beginning to tire of having to negotiate the crowds at Trader Joe's and Costco. Many people support the idea of the pickets, but many of these folks are beginning to cross them. The work of the picketers is getting more difficult. One striker told me that some of the strikers' cars had been keyed, and several times, the police had been called for minor complaints, just to harrass them. At least one striker was nearly run down by someone speeding past the picket line. I told the other members of my group that we've come a long way from the days where they would have had to worry about being hit over the head by a Pinkerton's club, but there was always a certain level of static they were going to endure.
While the strike drags on, the grocery chains are taking out ads in the newspapers that distort the real issues that are fueling this conflict. They have made the ridiculous claim that the strikers left their jobs over the companies' demand that they pay an extra $5 per week for benefits. Perhaps there are some of the workers for whom this is true. The vast majority of them are being asked to pay a lot more.
After we had finished making the rounds, I felt really good about the way I had spent a few hours of time on my Saturday off. These strikers are doing the heavy lifting right now for workers everywhere. If these companies can break this strike, then what other unions are in peril next? What other companies will decide that they want to cost-shift their cost of doing business onto the taxpayers?
So I felt like I had done some good. I had given some exposure to my candidate. I had gone out to personally thank the strikers for the important work they are doing. And I ended the day even more resolute in my belief that people have to stick together in times like these, when corporations and a corrupt fedral government are looking out for each others' interests, but not ours. And I'll be back out there again in a couple of weeks with the sodas and the chips, helping in my own small way to keep our democracy healthy.
promoted from Diaries by Melanie