The end of the grocery workers strike has left a sour taste in the mouths of consumers. For five months they endured frustration at the supermarket — if not from the awkward feeling of walking through a picket line, then at least from the empty milk shelves.
To add salt to the wound, the bargaining process between United Food and Commercial Workers and representatives of Safeway Inc., Kroger Co. and Albertsons Inc. exposed the grocery stores as rigid in their negotiations and the strikers’ marketing efforts as misleading. In the end, consumers got a front-row seat to the gore-fest that is the American labor dispute.
Part of the fault for the strike’s length can be placed on the grocery store chains themselves. Indeed, if they had not been so steadfastly opposed to making concessions at the bargaining table, the strike would never have dragged on for nearly five months. This is evident in the similarities of the recent strike-ending agreement to a proposal made by the grocery store chains in October 2003. Furthermore, the chains’ insistence on a two-tier wage system in which new employees would be placed in a lower pay bracket sounds, to many, sinister.
However, the grocery stores, to their credit, had a straightforward stance concerning the lockout from the beginning. They sent a clear message: We will not bargain. Though somewhat stubborn and deceptive (no one actually believed that they would go bankrupt without a two-tier wage system), they were at least consistent. The unions involved in the strike, on the other hand, relied on a platform that was highly misleading in the message it sent to consumers and the media.
When organizing the strike, union leaders were fully aware that the public’s support was the most crucial element; if consumers did not care, neither would Safeway. Therefore, UFCW nationalized its cause. In the press, it proclaimed that the strike was a battle “to save affordable health care for … all of America’s workers.”
Said one representative, “2004 is the year to put health care reform on the political agenda.” Another for AFL-CIO, which at one point took over strategic planning of the lockout, stated, “This strike is about defending health care coverage for all working people.”
Therefore, the 70,000 striking workers turned themselves into America’s voice for protecting, and even beginning the process of reforming (though in ambiguous terms), the health care system. A sympathetic public then turned away from their favorite grocery markets to show their support for the workers, expecting a landmark agreement to arise that would shape future policy concerning health care across the nation.
In contrast to what the UFCW described as “a sacrifice for affordable family health care … across the nation,” the recent bargaining agreement reveals that the interests of only the 70,000 striking workers involved were brought to the bargaining table. The contract expands new health care benefits to only current employees, while relegating new hires to a separate, “basic” plan. Furthermore, a two-tier pay system will allot current workers higher wages than individuals hired after Oct. 5, 2004, who would also face a longer raise schedule.
Even after the strike ended, with press releases failing to mention the two-tier payment system, UFCW proclaimed, “The strike raised the alarm for national health care reform.”
Despite UFCW assertions that it had served the entire country’s population of lower- and middle-class workers, it appears that the union’s devoted members merely served their own interests. This, of course, is no crime in itself. But the workers misled the public when they claimed to represent a national struggle for all workers, only to reach an agreement that furthered their own interests at the direct expense of future employees. If the unions, which knew the grocery stores would hold to the two-tier system, had no intention of preventing this aspect of the agreement, they should have been more straightforward in the promises they made to the public when garnering its support. At least that way, when the terms of the agreement had been made public, consumers would not have been left with the awkward feeling that they had been led on by the strikers’ promises of fighting for all workers.
Despite UFCW cries of victory, this agreement is a failure for workers across the country. Because future employees were left out of the deal, they will be left to fend for themselves through similar forms of collective action. The public, both tired of the inconvenience and remembering the difference between the platform of the 2003-04 strikers and its contrast with the agreement eventually reached, will not be as susceptible to UFCW-like propaganda and will not support future strikes as strongly as it did those of the last five months. The current agreement not only lowers future employees’ benefits, but also hinders their ability to increase them through collective action.
Ironically, at the conclusion of this ordeal, the strikers and unions, accepting terms that doomed all future employees to worse conditions than those that had led them to strike, appear to have been driven by the same selfish motivations of which they accused their employers.
The reality is that the American public was fooled into supporting a seemingly broad national cause, only to be left with an outcome that could not be more partial and exclusive. It was their own fault, however, as from day one they displayed immense naïvety.
An astounding characteristic of modern society that needs to be examined is its tendency to blindly support any group that claims to be “oppressed” by Corporate America. Consumers were naïve and gullible in assuming that the aims of the strikers were broad and national. Instead, society needs to acknowledge that individuals act in their own best self-interest and that no one holds an obligation to blindly support a group just because its claims appeal to one’s emotions or preconceptions about workers (as the poor oppressed) and corporations (as the greedy oppressors).
Perhaps the disturbing outcome of the grocery store strike can serve as a lesson for proper, responsible consumer behavior when such events arise in the future. Multibillion-dollar companies and large-scale unions will always lie. However, the consumer has a duty to filter out the noise in the information provided to them and fully understand the issue at hand before siding with one party.
The recent strike-ending agreement was a mild success for the 70,000 UFCW members, a profound victory for the grocery store chains, and a travesty for future employers of Southern California grocery stores. In addition, it serves to show that consumers need to act more responsibly in supporting such movements and strikes and not act solely on stereotypes and presumptions about workers and corporations.
