By Denise Jennex
Following is an article written by Alice Clement, Executive Director of the Alhambra UniServ, that I thought is important to share with you, as the supermarket workers are fighting a battle we can all identify with.
Our neighbors and friends at Ralph’s have taken the extreme step of a strike, though technically, they have been locked out of Ralph’s, and are hoping for your support.
Since the Los Angeles Times has taken a full-page ad to advance the supermarket owners point of view, I would like to share some of the worker’s side. First, though this strike is not over wages, the supermarket council ad said wages of the checkers are $17.90 an hour and butchers are $19.00 an hour. These workers start at $13.50 and top at $17.90 an hour. If these checkers and butchers worked a full 40 hour work week, they would make $34,000 a year and $38,000 a year respectfully. This is a decent but hardly a high salary.
But grocery clerks only represent about 25 of the 80 employees at the Ralph’s on Sunset in Pacific Palisades. The 25 baker and deli workers start at $8.00 and top at $12.00 an hour. The 20 wrappers and boxers start at $6.75 an hour and top at $7.40 an hour. That, my friends is about $14,000 a year, again if they work full time.
But they don’t all work 40 hours a week. Supermarket employees get schedules every two weeks and depending on the assessment management makes of the volume, their hours are adjusted downward, in most cases.
Furthermore, their hour and days fluctuate every week, making going to school, working at community activities and being at home with their families over the weekends occasional at best.
So these men and women, standing on their feet all day, serving this community, some of them for 35 years, stocking groceries, assisting customers, checking out and bagging groceries, make somewhere between $14,000 and $38,000 if they worked full time.
The issue they are fighting for is medical benefits. The one big advantage of working for a grocery store is they are covered by a reasonable package of medical benefits. The workers already make some co-payments for their medical benefits. Management wants to have the employees share the cost of premiums, increase the deductibles, increase the co-pays, and increase the cost of medical benefits for its retirees. The management proposal would increase the employees share of medical benefits by 50% and shift a billion dollars from the company to the workers. Our neighbors who work for Ralph’s put up with the physical labor, the irregular hours and the mediocre pay to protect their families in this way. And they are in danger of losing them.
The Ralph’s out of state owners, Kroger’s, Safeway and Albertson’s have increased their profits by 91% over the last 5 years. The grocery corporations are saying that they are afraid that when Wal-Mart comes, they will not be able to compete with this company. Wal-Mart does not cover the vast majority of its employees with medical benefits, but forces the taxpayers to cover the health of Wal-Mart workers through Medi-Cal and Medicare.
But Wal-Mart is not here yet, and when it comes, California shoppers should think twice before patronizing a company with such labor policies and the unions, with community support, should organize Wal-Mart.
In the meantime, please do not patronize Ralph’s Let the picketers, all of whom are from the local Ralph’s, know you support them. Their fight is the fight of all the middle income Americans who play by the rules, and deserve a fair game.