An estimated 7,000 grocery workers at Raley's and Nob Hill Foods grocery stores in Northern and Central California walked out on strike Sunday after 15 months of contract negotiations ended in acrimony.
The strike follows the implementation Sunday by Raley's of its "last, best and final" contract proposals, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers 8-Golden State and Local 5. The union accused Raley's of bargaining "in bad faith." The union also filed unfair labor practices complaints on Thursday, including allegations that Raley's managers have interrogated and intimidated union members, union officials said.
"We look forward to returning to the bargaining table when Raley's management has adopted a more constructive attitude," a statement from UCFW Presidents Jacques Loveall and Ron Lind said today. "Our goal from the beginning is to negotiate a fair agreement serving the needs of both Raley's and its union employees."
Raley's officials rejected the allegations. "We're very frustrated that it's come to this, this has been going on for 15 months," said spokesperson John Segale. "We submitted our last and final offer four weeks ago and we never heard from the union, they never let their employees vote on that."
"So we had no choice but to implement our wage package this morning," Segale said. Segale said Raley's urgently needs to cut costs in a "fiercely competitive" market. He said the Sacramento-based chain, which includes Raley's, Nob Hill Foods and Bel Air stores, has closed five stores in the past year and seen the opening or expansion of 240 non-union stores in its markets since 2008.
The conditions imposed today apply only to wages, Segale said. The store moved to freeze pay increases for two years and eliminate the premiums paid for employees working Sundays, night and holidays, but retained the one week of paid vacation and four paid holidays employees currently receive, he said.
Workers will be picketing stores and asking shoppers to take their business to competing grocery stores, union officials said Sunday. Raley's and Nob Hill Foods have more than two dozen stores located in the Bay Area and more in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.
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But Nob Hill does a good job in competing and has really nice people working there. The company's terms do not look kind to employees - one week's paid holiday, nothing extra for working nights, etc., etc?
where wages are being decreased. Paying higher wages than your neighbor and expecting to make a profit is a path to insolvency. Can someone explain why Nob Hill should pay workers for something no other market does? Equal pay plus equal benefits as the competition seems logical, in what looks to be a different world from now own.
Equal pay plus equal benefits seems the logical way to approach this, as you say. Patti now seems to have addressed this very neatly. Thanks Patti. I passed my local Nob Hill this morning and gave the thumbs up to several of the workers there, many of whom I've known for years.
They stress that employees are being paid time and a half for Sunday. Neither side has made their offers public. From what I can gleam Lucky's Safeway, etc. are not paying time and a half for sunday and that the Unions want Nob Hill to continue paying the time and a half plus sign on to the same contract that the others have done. Perhaps Patti has the inside track and can tell us all . As Observer so neatly paraphrased my comment : equal pay equal benefits is still my suggestion, especially at a time when things have changed for everyone else.
I respect the Loyalty these family are showing to eachother and their current customers in their community. Please Research what their fighting for before commenting : www.ufcw5.org Their fight in a short explanation is to maintain current pay take home they have earned in their years of vesting into this company and Health Care coverage for them and recent retired members. Basically imagine being a loyal customer to your car insurance provider for years/decades and the day you actually need them the services you have paid into are not warranted.