Listen to the workers:
'Our Story: Why We're Holding the Line'--VideoIn Their Own Words--Video Clips
Affordable
health care coverage is the difference between life and death - striking worker
Cathi Schafer at the AFL-CIO Rally to endorse John Kerry
(Real Player file)
Will parents afford
a doctor when a child gets ill?
UFCW strike is
a confrontation between corporate greed and American
families, workers get growing community support
The 70,000 striking and locked out supermarket workers in Southern California receive growing support and sympathy from consumers and community leaders. Last Thursday, religious, political, trade union and community leaders linked arms in front of Vons and Pavilions stores in Santa Monica, San Pedro, Los Angeles and Mission Viejo. The forty leaders included Cristina Chavez, great granddaughter of the legendary farm workers' leader Cesar Chavez, reports UFCW Local 770.
UFCW's struggle against retail giants Safeway, Kroger and Albertsons is not only the largest strike in the union's history. The strike, and the lockout, have taken on a huge significance, where much of the future of American life is being determined. Will the supermarket workers succeed to defend their right to earn a decent living through their work? Will they be able to stop the greedy corporate giants who want to deny working families access to affordable medical care?
Which road will America take?
The strike in Southern California is part of a conflict between two Americas. Never before has this been so evident as now when one of the most important presidential election processes ever in the United States coincides with the supermarket workers' survival struggle.
On one side is the the America of President George W. Bush, of the large corporations supporting him, and and the circle around him - the Cheneys, Rumsfelds, Aschcrofts and others. It is an America where the rich get wealthier and the poor get more destitute.
In this America, corporate greed is in the driver's seat. The middle class is fast bereaved of their 'American dream' and pushed into the growing ranks of the working poor. It is an America where the traditional values of human rights, equal opportunities and democratic decision making are sacrificed by a cynical alliance between greedy corporate leaders and cold politicians of an ignorant extreme right.
On the other side, there is an America which has always stood up for freedom and justice, both at home and abroad. This is the America, which has received millions of workers and their families who came there in search of better lives. This is a country with strong and proud labour movement traditions, a country where trade unions, active communities and parishes play an important role in peoples' lives. This is the United States where workers have built up the world's wealthiest economy.
Kerry campaign gives hope to workers
For the striking workers, as well as for the entire American trade union movement, the presidential campaign gives hope. John Kerry, the democrat front runner who was endorsed by the trade union movement last week, has come out strongly in defence of workers' rights - including their right to organise in trade unions. Kerry has stated that all Americans should have the right to a quality health care which is the same as that enjoyed by the President himself, the members of Congress and other politicians who have known how to take care of their own rights.
One can expect that there will be an exceptionally broad mobilisation of working families, to vote Bush out and to get the country back on track, working for economic and social progress and justice.
To afford medical care when a child gets sick - what could be more important?
In the American system, health insurance is part of collective agreement benefits. There is no universal right to quality health care for all Americans, one needs a medical insurance for this. That is what Safeway, Kroger and Albertsons now want to deny their 70,000 workers in Southern California.
On one hand, the supermarket giants demand that workers begin to pay a part of the insurance fees. This is also what they say publicly, that workers would have to pay only between 5 and 15 dollars per week themselves. What they do not say is that they would build in provisions in the policies which would lead to a fast deterioration of the health care services provided, or a cost increase for the workers which they could not afford.
To really understand what is at stake, one should listen to some of the striking workers themselves. This can be done at the UFCW website, and that of the UFCW Locals in Southern California. To be on strike for five months, and to hold out, is not an easy thing. This is not done for small reasons. And it is definitely not about small things - it is about continuing to be able to seek medical help when a child gets sick.
Cathi Schafer, a striking supermarket worker, spoke at the rally last week in Washington DC, where the AFL-CIO endorsed John Kerry. "Affordable health care coverage is the difference between life and death", she said. "I know because I am an eight year breast cancer survivor". Could the message be more clear.
Nervous employers are lying about health care
United States Congressman Tom Lantos is one of those who say that the supermarket employers are waging a misinformation campaign:
"I have reviewed Safeway’s benefit funding proposal for new hires...on your company’s web site. Your proposal will not provide any substantial benefits for new employees...it is obvious your intent is to eliminate health benefits in the future."
He also points out that new workers would enter with much poorer benefits than what the collective agreements grant to present ones.
"You conveniently ignore the impact of segregating new hires from current employees (a key component of the companies’ proposals is to eliminate any meaningful benefits for new employees)...As employees are replaced, the funding base will shrink until benefits (for current employees) have to be cut or co-pays increased well beyond $5 to $15 a week."
It is not only health care that is at stake. The three retail giants also want to introduce considerably much lower wage rates for new workers. Over a few years, this would change the very nature of the supermarket industry in the United States.
Safeway & Co want to copy Wal-Mart model
We would see a walmartization of wages and benefits, with retailing emerging as an industry of the working poor, who cannot support themselves and their families through their jobs. When the children get sick, there would be no money to take them to a doctor. When they grow up, they would be denied a college education because their families could not afford it. The dream of own homes would have to be given up as mortgages could not be paid.
Yes, once again Wal-Mart can be found in the background. Not so, however, that Safeway, Kroger and Albertsons would be hard pressed to cut benefits to compete. These three are highly profitable retailers and are not pushed into a corner by the giant from Bentonville.
What Safeway's CEO Steve Burd and his colleagues in the two other companies have set their sights on is to try to copy the Wal-Mart concept. To cut labour costs and to destroy the unions of their workers would, they believe, bring in even higher profits.
They may still prove themselves wrong. Signs are that opinions are turning against them, that the limits of what people and communities tolerate are being reached. The 70,000 hypermarket workers and their trade union UFCW have already opened many eyes for what is happening when corporate greed is allowed to determine how our societies are evolving. Also outside the United States, unions and their members are closely following the struggle in California, knowing that in a globalised world, they can be next.