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California grocery strike hits close to home

By Jake Batsell
Seattle Times business reporter

	ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Marquita Johnson, left, a Safeway worker from Tacoma, and union representative Denise Fuchs rally outside a Seattle Safeway to show support for striking California grocery workers.
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Gathering outside a Safeway store in lower Queen Anne, local representatives of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) said they have raised $200,000 for fellow Safeway, Albertsons and Kroger employees in California.

Workers there have rejected a contract proposal that includes cuts in health-care benefits and reduced wages for new employees. Employees at Vons, owned by Safeway, decided to strike Oct. 11, prompting lockouts by Albertsons and by Ralphs, a division of Kroger.

Some 30,000 grocery workers from Olympia to Bellingham have a stake in the California dispute, union leaders say, because the outcome could affect their talks. Their contract expires in May.

"Let's do everything we can to help them with their struggle because it is our struggle," Michael Hatfield, president of UFCW Local 44 in Mount Vernon, told supporters at the rally.

	ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Anne-Marie Cavanaugh, a United Food and Commercial Workers worker from Tacoma, holds a banner outside the lower Queen Anne Safeway at a rally yesterday.

Grocery workers along the West Coast have received fully paid health benefits for years. But in California, companies want to shift some of those costs to employees, citing rising health-care premiums and stiffer competition from lower-paying, nonunion retailers such as Wal-Mart.

Unions argue that the cuts would drastically reduce coverage for new employees and, over time, make medical insurance too costly for all grocery workers.

When Seattle-area grocery talks begin next year, Hatfield said he expects the chains to offer a proposal similar to the one offered in Southern California.

"We're dealing with the exact same employers," Hatfield said. "There's no reason to believe that what they're asking in California will be any different up here."

But Randy Zeiler, executive director of Allied Employers, a Kirkland labor-relations firm that represents most major grocery chains in the Northwest, said the acrimony won't necessarily be repeated here. Over the past year, he said, his firm has helped reach agreements on new grocery contracts in Eastern Washington and the Portland area, despite many of the same issues.

"We've been able to negotiate settlements with these same unions and employers, and we're optimistic we can do the same thing here," said Zeiler, whose firm represents Safeway, Albertsons and Kroger chains QFC and Fred Meyer, among others.

Jake Batsell: 206-464-2718 or jbatsell@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company