A strike in the family

JOSEPH N. BELL

I went grocery shopping last Monday, but I never got in the store.

Instead, I hung around outside shooting the breeze with the people

who normally take care of me inside. Actually, my wife does most of

our grocery shopping, but I go along or make extra trips often enough

that I feel a small part of our supermarket family. And I saw a lot

of family when I visited on Monday. Outside.

Our supermarket home is Ralphs at the corner of 17th Street and

Irvine Avenue. We know where every item in the store can be found,

probably better than we know what lurks in some of our closets at

home. When our Ralphs renovated and upgraded awhile back, it took us

many weeks to find our way about the new floor plan.

So now, we’re faced with another drastic change. The people who

cut our meat, sprayed our produce, steered us to exotic items,

checked us out and bagged our groceries are outside looking in. And

from an hour of observation and a good deal of talk, it appeared to

me that most of the people who used to be inside shopping are now

also outside looking in with their old friends.

One of the familiar faces outside belonged to Gary Gallucci, who

heads up the produce department inside. He told me: “We’re very

encouraged by the reaction we see. The majority of people who shop

here are with us. They know us by name. Know about our kids, and we

know about theirs. We feel bad about sending them somewhere else to

shop.”

While I hung out on a Monday afternoon, perhaps a half-dozen

customers went in the store from a near-deserted parking lot. The

picketers greeted them, rolled up a cart, and asked them to read a

one-page flier headlined “Why We Are On Strike.” It was all low-key

and pleasant and accepted that way. I was told that most of the time,

that’s how it plays out.

I don’t intend to debate the issues here. They have been covered

exhaustively in the local newspapers -- and especially in the

business section of the Los Angeles Times. The primary issues at

dispute are the size of the cuts in medical benefits employees are

being asked to absorb, wage adjustments for the 75% of supermarket

employees who work part-time, proposed wage cuts for new employees

and threatened inadequate funding of workers’ pension plans.

Owners of the three largest supermarket chains say they must

reduce costs to meet the growing competition from such non-union

discounters as Wal-Mart and Costco. Leaders of the United Food and

Commercial Workers Union say that supermarket profits have increased

substantially over the last five years, that the discounters have

only a tiny presence in urban areas, and that the large chains are

trying to push out current supermarket employees and bring in a new

generation of workers who will accept less money and no health

benefits.

Right now, negotiations are at an impasse, which the people

picketing at Ralphs consider a deliberate ploy on the part of

management. Maggie Land, a union business agent, was on hand at

Ralphs last Monday to buck up the troops and pass along strike news,

of which there seemed to be very little. “They say, ‘Here’s our

offer’, and we respond to open up negotiations,” she said. “Then we

simply don’t hear from them again. But we’re going to stay the route

for as long as it takes.”

The strikers have had to deal with their first missed paycheck.

Now, several of them told me, they are looking at the upcoming

holidays with a growing sense they may be very lean this year. The

only money coming in is from a strike fund that had been built up

with self-imposed paycheck deductions. Strikers are able to earn a

maximum of about $300 if they put in 40 hours a week on the picket

line. When you spread that around, it adds up to a pretty small

Christmas tree.

But right now, spirits are high and determination strong. Said

Gary Gallucci: “I’ve given 34 years to this business. We’ve helped

them make a ton of money. Ninety percent of the time we’ve reached

the goals they set for us. We’re using skills we developed inside to

deal with the public now. I’m greatly encouraged by public reaction

and surprised at the variety of people supporting us. It seems to be

coming from across the whole economic spectrum.”

But public reaction hasn’t all been warm and fuzzy. There are the

people who lean from their car windows and squirt water on them and

shout, “We pay for our insurance,” or “Get a job,” or are enraged at

this break in their shopping routine and vent their anger on the

pickets.

There is pessimism that some things will never again be the same.

Meat cutter Michael Williams said that the meat now being sold in the

struck stores has all been pre-cut in a warehouse, and that may well

continue as a cost-saver when the strike is over. “That would put

8,000 meat cutters out of work,” he said, “men and women who spent

two years getting certified and who provide special meat service to

our customers.”

And there is anger outside at the people inside they call “scabs,”

who cross picket lines to perform the jobs of the pickets, often at a

pay scale the veterans say they worked long and hard to achieve. But

at this stage of the game, the good feeling and support far

overshadow such negatives for the strikers at my supermarket. The

customers continue to bring doughnuts and pizzas and bottled water to

the pickets to keep their spirits high. So, projecting from

management’s apparent strategy and the strikers’ determination, we

may be in for a long spell of shopping at Stater Bros. or the

convenience store around the corner.

Gary Gallucci says: “I’m in it for the long haul.” Maggie Land

says: “Whatever it takes, we have a support family.”

And -- for now, at least -- a lot of their customers continue to

consider themselves a part of that family.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.