Moving on after months-long strike

After a 19-week strike and lockout of 59,000 supermarket workers at

852 stores in Central and Southern California, the United Food and

Commercial Workers Union conceded to the major demands of the

supermarket chains.

The strike, which ended March 2, took a heavy toll on the grocery

store chains, with at least $1.5 billion in foregone sales. There has

been mixed response in Laguna Beach to the strike’s end.

Ralphs shoppers Robert Guinther, 53, and his mother Pat Guinther,

83, were back to shop at Ralphs on Wednesday.

“I had to come here,” Pat Guinther said. “I walk all the time, and

the kids here are all so kind to me. I was happy and relieved when I

found out it was over. I got hugs from some of my kids.”

Robert Guinther said he saw his mother also get hugs from the

dairy man.

Clerk Ingrid Hietzke is glad it’s over, and thanks the shoppers

for their support.

“I appreciate everything they did for us,” Hietzke said.

Toni Dietz, who had worked at Ralphs for 10 years, started working

for her husband’s company during the strike and decided she isn’t

going back.

“I haven’t been there as long as most of the other girls, [but]

I’m glad those girls went back to work,” Dietz said.

She said the biggest thing about the strike was that they were

trying to stop the two-tier pay system.

“Because all the new hires will get paid less money, benefits and

probably no pensions -- what’s going to happen?” Dietz said.

“Obviously, they’ll start scheduling people who make less money [and

work] more hours.”

Only about five people at Ralphs in Laguna are guaranteed 40

hours, Dietz said. Everyone else is only guaranteed 25 hours.

“There’s no guarantee to make a living anymore,” Dietz said. “For

now, the contract is for three years. It’s a lose-lose situation.

Everyone loses. They lost a lot of money, and they didn’t end up

keeping everything they had before. Basically, everybody loses.”

She thinks everyone else will continue to go to places like Trader

Joes, Wild Oats or the Farmer’s Market.

“They set it up [years back] so people could make a career out of

it,” Dietz said. “Now they’re stopping pensions. People work here for

30 years and want to be able to retire, and in the end, they [the

supermarket] want to take it all away.”

Kristen Daneen worked at Pavilions for two months during the

strike.

“I had a good time -- the only thing was the stress of walking

into the job over the picket line,” Daneen said. “Other than that,

[those on strike or locked out] yell into the doors.”

People’s cars were getting vandalized and she was taunted in the

parking lot with threats that they would damage her car, Daneen said.

“There were a lot of flippant remarks,” Daneen said. “The

customers were like, ‘Oh, my gosh,’ wishing that it was over. Some

came in in tears and asked for the management.”

She, like many other fill-ins, did it for the money, Daneen said.

She was paid $17.90 an hour.