A Separate Peace: Contract appeases only current workers

So it’s finally over.

No more guilt over breaking the picket lines, no more impatience
with clerks not knowing the difference between iceberg lettuce and
cabbage.

Four and a half months after they were locked out, it looks like
the striking supermarket employees will finally be back on the job
this week, after ratification Sunday night of a deal negotiated by
union leadership.

Dozens will be back at Ralphs in Westwood.

Certainly, I’m thrilled that they are returning to work,
and most of them are, too. This marks the end to the largest
supermarket strike in the country’s history. But somehow, I
don’t feel any more inclined to go back.

First, the agreement is an unimpressive compromise. It gives
veteran employees just enough in the way of benefits to draw them
back to work. But in approving the contract, union members sold out
the next crop of clerks.

New hires will make substantially less than the veterans; they
will carry lean health care plans, and it will take them longer to
rise through the ranks.

The two-tiered system will inevitably turn new hires against the
old-hand employees. It nearly eliminates the incentive to work for
a promotion, and the gap will be bad for morale. It creates a
problem because employees will be doing the same work for uneven
wages (perhaps a 15 percent difference, according to the Los
Angeles Times), and the chains might be more likely to cut into the
hours of the more expensive employees.

Not until recently was anyone expecting a deal like this. Many
strikers, outside picketing for the past 20 weeks, feel
betrayed.

The deal indicates an unwillingness on the part of the chains to
accommodate anything more than the current staff’s interests,
and it reflects the United Food and Commercial Workers
Union’s inability to make any substantial progress.

If the UFCW is concerned with workers’ rights as a whole
instead of merely this generation of strikers, the contract is a
step backward. It looks like the union just blinked first.

Moreover, there’s been some especially bitter fallout.
There were reports of suicides during the lockout, and news of some
stores hiring temporary workers with false identifications ““
including at the Westwood location. There were dozens of arrests on
the picket lines. Some workers don’t even want to go
back.

We’ve had our share of walkouts around here. In early
October, it was the TAs. A week later, it was the grocery clerks
and the MTA, in the same weekend. Even the sheriffs were taking
sporadic sick-outs. But while the transit strike hurt more
consumers, the grocery strike is the one I’ll remember.

How do you return to a place that has locked out its own workers
for nearly five months? Is it justifiable because a 3-pound bag of
Red Delicious apples just can’t be found for $1.99 anywhere
else?

It’s a strange dilemma to face as college students.
We’re supposed to be the ones strapped for cash, looking to
buy the cheapest produce around. Many of us are, and it’s
true ““ sometimes you just can’t beat a big bag of
apples.

But then sometimes it’s just not worth it. The pennies
saved could be someone’s health care lost, and at the risk of
throwing economists into a tizzy, perhaps the supermarkets should
have just taken a risk by passing the cost on to their customers
instead of trimming it out of their employees’ contracts.

There are rumors of huge sales on the horizon, from supermarkets
hoping to win over their former customers. If the discounts are
enough to lure them back, there might not have been any lessons
learned.

E-mail [email protected] if you know how those apples
are $1.99.